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I do not write software, but I am fascinated and/or perplexed about the weirdest claim I have encountered in a long time: This survey that says programmers who use tabs to indent their code make less money than coders who use spaces:

Indeed, the median developer who uses spaces had a salary of $59,140, while the median tabs developer had a salary of $43,750. Developers who responded “Both” were generally indistinguishable from ones who answered “Tabs”:

Is this just a random fluctuation, or is there some correlation? Darned if I know. The only hint came when I put this on Twitter and got one response the effect that tabs are less consistent than spaces, which might indicate that tab users are … sloppy? lazy? lacking attention to detail?

Or maybe they’re just afraid of accidentally wading into the debate about whether to put two spaces after a period.

 

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