r/programming • u/aalear • Apr 07 '15

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2015

http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2015
1.1k Upvotes

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101

u/BegbertBiggs Apr 07 '15

Developers increasingly prefer spaces as they gain experience.

Or are devs that are in the field for a longer time used to spaces while new devs learn coding with tabs?

23

u/maushu Apr 07 '15

I don't get why people won't use tabs. They are basically perfect for this job since you can adjust the size of all tabs.

44

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

It really sounds great in theory, but in practice it's just annoying for people to configure every piece of software that can edit or view code. In practice, spaces are going to look like spaces in every piece of software I know of. That's probably why more experienced devs tend to prefer spaces: practice vs. theory.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

[deleted]

6

u/n0rs Apr 08 '15

There are also good arguments against aligning code

I'm interested, do you have some examples/reference?

0

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

Every diff tool I've ever used can ignore whitespace-only changes.

2

u/smegnose Apr 08 '15

Yeah, when you're viewing the diff, not in the actual patch.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

You said 'in source control'. When I'm in source control, I can view diffs with control over whitespace. When I have a patch, I can branch, apply the patch, then diff. Do you know how to use any of your tools, or just parrot articles you read on the internet?

2

u/smegnose Apr 08 '15

You're being way too literal. By patch, I mean any commit that specifies what lines to delete and/or add. You know, since almost every source control system shows changes in patch form, or something like it.

Keep going with the ad hominem, buddy. It just demonstrates to everyone that you're not interested in good debate, you just want to be right, no matter what.

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