On Sunday, November 10, 2002, at 11:43 PM, Jerry Asher wrote:
Why tabs?
If you are an emacs user, then the tab key means "indent this line to the proper level", and you don't care whether it uses tabs or spaces (but spaces work out better on many printers).
If you use an editor for which the tab key means "tab", rather than "indent", then tabs are easier than spaces because you only require a single keystroke to increase or descrease indentation, whereas with spaces, you require as many keystrokes as you use spaces per indent. I'll suggest, though, that there is little good to be had in this discussion, because the folks who like tabs hate editors with an "indent" key, but won't argue the merits of that function rather than the keystroke count; likewise, the folks who like editors with an "indent" key think the whole tabs/spaces thing is silly. Because each side is arguing about something different, and unrelated to the position held by the other side, the argument never gets anywhere.
