With that in mind, you are free to reformat the file to your tastes on checkout and do it with repo-compliant standards on commit.

If I did work for Google, with their heinous 2-space tabs, I'd certainly do that all the time.

> I like the principle that "a program is a text file", that you can edit with tools orthogonal to the language in question

Adjustable tab display width and automatic line wrapping are features any good text editor offers that do not interfere with the use of any other text manipulation tools on that file.

Now, if you're forced to work in an environment where someone wrongheadedly decided to adapt to users who have bad or badly configured editors and standardized on space indentation that sucks, but that's the fault of whoever made that bad decision.