Only if a person’s machine is set to a tab size of four spaces. By this logic, we would need eight spaces for the people with a larger tab size of eight on their machines so they could be 1:1. Minimizing horizontal space is ideal as not everyone has huge horizontal monitor space to work with. But, everyone has infinite vertical space with scrolling.
If your code takes up so much horizontal space with 4-space tabs, you’re putting too much on one line or indenting too deep. 4-space tabs keeps your line length manageable.
Tabs should be 4 spaces because it can be replaced 1:1 with “tabs”.
For example…
vs…
Put that in your code review, cowards!
Only if a person’s machine is set to a tab size of four spaces. By this logic, we would need eight spaces for the people with a larger tab size of eight on their machines so they could be 1:1. Minimizing horizontal space is ideal as not everyone has huge horizontal monitor space to work with. But, everyone has infinite vertical space with scrolling.
If your code takes up so much horizontal space with 4-space tabs, you’re putting too much on one line or indenting too deep. 4-space tabs keeps your line length manageable.
Or you’re using four spaces per tab, just throwing that out there. =p
If you have to nest more than 2 layers, rewrite your code.