Yesterday, I shared some spicy takes. A few were particularly controversial—most notably, that I correct Gif the correct way (with a soft G)—but I also got a lot of emails asking me to elaborate on a few of them.
Today, I wanted to talk about how tabs are objectively better than spaces. This won’t take long.
Tabs let you define how big you want each indent to be, and spaces do not.
Then you lose the benefit of tabs: you can’t adjust the tab width without destroying alignment. So you end up with a confusing mix of characters for no benefit.
You’re confusing using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment with using tabs and spaces for indentation. This means each line starts with tabs. Next you optionally have spaces for alignment with previous lines. Then you have content (like code or comments). Because you never have a tab following a space the alignment is never destroyed by adjusting how wide a tabstop is.
Then you lose the benefit of tabs: you can’t adjust the tab width without destroying alignment. So you end up with a confusing mix of characters for no benefit.
Mixing them is the worst option.
You’re confusing using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment with using tabs and spaces for indentation. This means each line starts with tabs. Next you optionally have spaces for alignment with previous lines. Then you have content (like code or comments). Because you never have a tab following a space the alignment is never destroyed by adjusting how wide a tabstop is.
I am not, it’s easy to find examples where tabs first then spaces breaks down.
That example is using tabs for both indentation and alignment. The article you linked even says not using tabs for alignment is a solution.