Spaces are fixed. Tabs are adjustable via most user interfaces.
So, in theory, you'd think tabs are superior because everyone can have their own amount of spacing and that's that.
Therefore tabs > spaces
(I should probably leave now)
A simple solution is to use tabs, because then every developer can set the tab distance however they like, and they are happy. It breaks down when you have code that is aligned beyond the indent, like this:
if(a && b &&
c && d &&
e && f ) {
The best solution is to use tabs to the point of indentation, and then spaces thereafter, but a lot of code editors don't support that, so in practice it's hard to implement, so people use spaces to preserve their formatting when it gets uploaded to github.
Python and spaces for me.
> Python and spaces for me.Open a file where it is all spaces, and it looks the same on every machine. Open a file with a mix of spaces and tabs, and it often turns out an absolute mess.
Longer version: First understand that there is no tabs vs. space. There is only tabs + spaces vs. only spaces. (Because not all indentation line up with tab spaces, and someone may wish to line up assignments, lists, etc.) Only one developer in the history of your project that uses another tab stop standard is then enough to mess up your indentation. And that's just one way to mess it up, in a sufficiently large project some creative developer will find another.
Spaces just work and ensures your guidelines are followed. The only downside is a few wasted bytes. It might have been a religious debate in a long distant past when someone actually counted bytes, but today it's mostly young developers who don't know better who engage in it (with a few exceptions). Linus uses spaces. OpenSSL changed to spaces as part of cleaning up their codebase. It's the default behaviour of GNU indent. It is a good idea.
Tabs width can be set to whatever you want, so everyone can use the spacing they prefer.
Great writing. Spaces all the way.