> Does spending time considering the implications of spaces vs tabs really indicate competence?

No, it signifies that you have spent enough time programming in a wide variety of platforms and with enough other peers to run in to the issue and understand that it exists.

It doesn't signify anything. I think you might be giving a bad impression of your company by asking that question. In an interview, you have a limited amount of time to come to a judgment about a candidate. Using that time to ask pointless and borderline flamebait questions is going to be a red flag for a lot of candidates. You are also going to put candidates on edge by making them worry about whether or not they have given the "right" answer to a silly question.

It just signifies that someone has worked with enough pedantic developers that they had to form an opinion on something as insignificant as this, or that this person is pedantic enough to have a strong opinion on it.

I wouldn't consider the first to be a good indicator of someone's skill as a developer, and the second would be a good indicator that it was someone I didn't want to work with, but I'm guessing that's not how you're using it...

I agree. This is ridiculous.

> it signifies that you have spent enough time programming in a wide variety of platforms and with enough other peers to run in to the issue and understand that it exists

Or maybe it signifies youthful inexperience?

Of the programmers that I know, the longer they have been programming, and the more varied projects they have worked on, the less they care about tabs v. spaces. Whatever standard the project they're working on uses, that's how they set up their editor for that project, because it's one less thing to have to worry about.

>Whatever standard the project they're working on uses, that's how they set up their editor for that project, because it's one less thing to have to worry about.

I think that the OP would consider that a fine answer.

> Does spending time considering the implications of spaces vs tabs really indicate competence?

Absolutely not. Getting along with the team is a measure of competence. Asking this question can reveal that.

Exactly. One's ability to allocate their most precious resource is probably the greatest signifier of competence, and vice versa, incompetence.