Assume you want to eliminate horizontal scrolling. This is a valuable enough goal that a lot of coding style guides have a width guideline. That keeps everybody from having to make their editor windows as wide as the last person who worked on the code.
If this arrangement is working, nobody has to scroll horizontally, and there is no arms race of ever-wider editor windows.
Now introduce tabs into this situation. In theory I can set tabs to be whatever size I like. But in practice, I can't make them wider than the last person who worked on the code, because then I'm back to horizontal scrolling. Moreover, if I make them narrower, then they have to narrow their tabs to keep pace. So you get an arms race of tab- narrowing instead of window widening.
I just want to code. I don't want to scroll horizontally, or constantly mess with my window width and/or tab settings to avoid that. It's extra work that doesn't accomplish anything.
I am genuinely baffled (but I don't think I'm right and you're wrong... I trust HN people to be smart and capable). Can you please explain to me how using tabs vs spaces would encourage people to indent their code differently? I mean, if I have an "if" statement, then I indent my code -- but why would people indent their code for reasons other than what the flow of the code suggests? And if these hypothetical "indenting just because I can and not because I should" people exist, how would their inconsiderate behavior be any different whether they are using tabs or spaces?
I'm not talking about using a different style. I'm saying that different tab widths lead to different requirements for how many columns wide my window must be.
If this arrangement is working, nobody has to scroll horizontally, and there is no arms race of ever-wider editor windows.
Now introduce tabs into this situation. In theory I can set tabs to be whatever size I like. But in practice, I can't make them wider than the last person who worked on the code, because then I'm back to horizontal scrolling. Moreover, if I make them narrower, then they have to narrow their tabs to keep pace. So you get an arms race of tab- narrowing instead of window widening.
I just want to code. I don't want to scroll horizontally, or constantly mess with my window width and/or tab settings to avoid that. It's extra work that doesn't accomplish anything.