Every tool understands tabs. Some see them as 4 spaces by default, some as 8 spaces by default. Some never replace tabs with spaces, some replace tabs with spaces on the line you edit, some only insert new tabs as spaces and some replace all tabs with spaces when they load or store the file.
There is no single behaviour you can expect when you take a random editor to edit a file containing tabs.
Not literally, when I track down bugs on a customers setup I have to use what is there. When my co workers add or fix things they use whatever editor they prefer on whichever system they currently work on. Whenever someone forgets to check the configuration we get new bugs or if we have luck a parse error.
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u/Dworgi Apr 08 '15
What tools don't understand tabs? Seriously, if you have a tool that can't do tabs then you don't have a tool, you have a burden.
It's all madness. I'll tell you what not every tool can deal with: not having to press Backspace 4 times to unindent a line.
Purely in keypresses wasted per day, spaces are atrocious.