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Groups > comp.lang.c > #399657

Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...])

From Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.c, comp.editors
Subject Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...])
Followup-To comp.editors
Date 2026-06-03 10:28 +0200
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <10vooj9$3uus7$9@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References <10tg96h$1g1mp$1@dont-email.me> <10tismt$2cmtr$1@dont-email.me> <10vnae7$35ho0$1@dont-email.me>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

Followups directed to: comp.editors

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On 2026-06-02 21:20, Mario Rosell wrote:
>> [...]
> 
> I think TABs are cool because of this: you can set the indentation level
> to what you are used to.

Sure.

> also saves space if you really need to squash four bytes.

I think this is the weakest argument for TABs; it had been weak
in former days already, and it's IMO quite ridiculous nowadays.


Given the now existing powerful and flexible editors as options
to address own preferences (or project demands) you have anyway
all the freedom you like.

In Vim you have 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to distinguish unequal
levels of spaces-indenting and TAB-definition, there's 'softtabstop'
to use spaces but let TAB and Backspace handle the various amounts
of blanks as a single entity, there's 'expandtab' to expand TABs
to blanks, or 'smarttab' to distinguish indentation TABs at the
front of a line from alignment-blanks in the mid of the code, all
conveniently handled with the Tab-key of course. (And I wouldn't
be astonished if there's more flexibility that I don't know of.)
I've also heard of (but never used) a setting to handle makefiles'
TABs. (Personally I'm defining just 'ts' and 'sw' and occasionally
define 'et'; the shortcuts for the above editor options.)

So that "Tabs vs. Spaces War" shouldn't be a topic nowadays since
we have all options in principle (but maybe not in all editors).

Janis

PS: And since I don't see the topical relevance for "C" (or C++)
I set Followup-to: comp.editors

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Thread

“A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2026-05-06 15:43 -0500
  Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-05-07 13:29 -0700
    Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-07 21:26 +0000
    Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> - 2026-05-08 07:57 +0100
      Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-08 09:25 +0000
        Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2026-06-03 17:00 -0500
          Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-06-03 15:07 -0700
            Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2026-06-03 17:51 -0500
          Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-07 02:40 +0000
            Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2026-06-07 10:46 +0100
              Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> - 2026-06-07 12:44 +0100
    Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2026-05-08 14:14 +0300
      Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-05-08 13:29 -0700
    Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-06-02 19:20 +0000
      Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 13:27 -0700
        Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> - 2026-06-02 21:59 +0100
          Re: Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-06-02 21:35 +0000
            Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 14:53 -0700
              Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2026-06-02 23:28 +0100
                Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-03 06:58 +0000
                Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-06-03 13:15 -0700
            Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 17:35 -0500
              Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> - 2026-06-04 20:54 +0000
                Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2026-06-04 17:28 -0500
          Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 14:45 -0700
          Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-03 06:53 +0000
      Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...]) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-03 10:28 +0200
        Re: Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...]) Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-06-03 05:20 -0400
          Re: Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...]) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-03 14:35 +0200
          Re: Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...]) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-06-03 14:50 +0200
          Re: Are TABs a topic? ( was Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch [...]) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-04 00:07 +0000
  Re: �A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures� by Raymond Chen pyotr filipivich <phamp@mindspring.com> - 2026-05-08 16:18 -0700
    Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2026-05-08 18:32 -0500
      Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-05-09 01:50 +0200
        Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2026-05-08 21:00 -0500
    Re: "A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures" by Raymond Chen Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-05-09 07:19 -0400
    Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-09 13:58 +0200
      Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 03:40 +0000
        Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2026-05-10 08:58 +0100
        Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-10 12:34 +0200
          Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 22:59 +0000
        Re: A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures by Raymond Chen Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 15:48 -0700
  Re: “A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures” by Raymond Chen Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-05-09 16:14 -0700

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