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.
I’ve been paid to program for the last 37 years now, and I use tabs because back-in-the-day that’s what you used. So this might be some sort of indicator that programmers entering the workforce earlier have not seen consistent salary gains compared to later recruits.
As for the tab verses spaces, my editor is set to remove the tabs and replace them with spaces when the file is saved because how a tab is treated in different editors can be different and frustrating. So this is done as a kindness for other coders who have to work with my code.
A belated comment: Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 6. (Belated, because I only watched it last night.) Bonus: a vim-vs-emacs disagreement.