this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Programmer Humor

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait. Are tabs used more often in modern stuff? Almost everything I use does spaces and I'm not that new to programming. Been doing it for maybe 5 years. I use spaces in everything but Go.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most text editors people use (like VSCode) generally automatically adjust tabs to be whatever the standard indent is for the project (and convert to spaces if it's necessary). As a result, indenting with tabs usually just works, and so most people just learn to do it that way. Also people are used to using tabs for indent from things like Word which they used before learning to write code. As a result, I've noticed most people use the tab key (even if their not technically "using tabs" every time they do it).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the deeper generational thing is in the idea that anything "just works". Like I'm a programmer, right, so I know shortcuts. Ctrl+S saves the file, simple right?

Me when I want to save a file: Ctrl+SSSS. Why? Because I don't trust it "just works". Same reason I don't trust auto save. Same reason I am stunned every time I tell windows to diagnose and fix the network problem and then it actually does.

I grew up in a time where you couldn't trust any of that shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I generally trust things that "just work" so long as I know why and under what conditions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I have my tab key set up to insert spaces. I meant the characters being used, not the key used to write them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Exactly, and do you think the majority of people who took the survey considered that distinction?