Many years ago, I used tabs, and set them to two-space indent. The former because the entire point is that tabs carry different semantic information - this is a level of indentation, not just making things align vertically - and allow each developer to set the indentation width to their preference. (The other comment from DaiPlusPlus explains the proper use of tabs, just as I did it.)
The latter because that makes them more square. Aesthetics matter.
I switched mostly out of peer pressure. But one argument I did find convincing is that setting some specific limit on line length - whether it's 72 or 78 or 80 or 100 or anything else - makes sense, and letting people change the amount of indentation defeats that purpose. That is: the guy who likes 8-space indents can't actually have them, because it produces a horizontal scroll for code that "conformed to the style guidelines" when written by the 2-space guy.
But now I alias names, break up complex subexpressions etc. to avoid questions of how to split code across multiple lines - and most lines in my code are nowhere near any such length limit. And I write short functions, so there aren't enough levels of indentation to matter.
And I use 4-space indents, because standards have value after all.
Many years ago, I used tabs, and set them to two-space indent. The former because the entire point is that tabs carry different semantic information - this is a level of indentation, not just making things align vertically - and allow each developer to set the indentation width to their preference. (The other comment from DaiPlusPlus explains the proper use of tabs, just as I did it.)
The latter because that makes them more square. Aesthetics matter.
I switched mostly out of peer pressure. But one argument I did find convincing is that setting some specific limit on line length - whether it's 72 or 78 or 80 or 100 or anything else - makes sense, and letting people change the amount of indentation defeats that purpose. That is: the guy who likes 8-space indents can't actually have them, because it produces a horizontal scroll for code that "conformed to the style guidelines" when written by the 2-space guy.
But now I alias names, break up complex subexpressions etc. to avoid questions of how to split code across multiple lines - and most lines in my code are nowhere near any such length limit. And I write short functions, so there aren't enough levels of indentation to matter.
And I use 4-space indents, because standards have value after all.