I used to always prefer tabs for indentation, but after struggling with alignment for so long and also learning a bit of Python, which benefits from spaces, I've decided to switch completely over to spaces.

Now we can have another tabs vs. spaces flame war, but now I've switched sides...

** EDIT **

I'm so used to Tab meaning a tab character that I keep instinctively using the Space bar to indent now...

I've configured Vim to use spaces to indent, but I just instinctively hit the Space bar 4 times instead of tab... It's starting to make me struggle at j0rb too cause they use tabs there (and they probably haven't reached a point yet where spaces make sense), but I'm starting to get used to using spaces. My environments have always been configured to use tabs, so whenever I used to use spaces to indent (mainly here on Allegro.cc and I suppose recently in Python) I would do so manually with the Space bar; so I started doing that at j0rb the past couple of days. Once I get used to using the tab key for spaces for my own stuff, it should be less of a problem because it should just work most of the time at j0rb (cause it's configured for tabs there) the same as it does at home (which will be configured for spaces). The difference should often be transparent.

Since the dawn of time...

I've been programming for a long time now and have always used spaces. Recently, a couple of months, I switched to tabs to see how I would feel. I like tabs better.

Well, if you are not going to make puns, Vim lets you move to the first non blank character of the line (similar to what some Microsoft IDEs do when you press Home, you go to the first non blank character instead of the start of the line). Most editors let you skip all the blanks with CTRL+LEFT, for example.

Right, don't do that. As Rey says, skip entire words at a time. But I wonder why you need to be cursoring over indentation anyway. Every editor I've ever used (except maybe notepad) at least lets you jump to the start of the line past the indentation, if it doesn't place you there already.

Another vi/vim tip to avoid cursoring (and this is one I didn't know for a long time): the 'f' command lets you skip directly to the next occurrence of a character on the line, e.g. f, skips to the next comma. 'F' goes in the other direction.

Just trying to save some wrists.

Nothing but tabs for me, same as I wouldn't use two hyphens to make an emdash. Actually, scratch that comparison - I've never understood why anyone thinks this decision is anything other than personal preference.

And, yes, it does make me feel bad when I post from my iPhone like now and the only dash easily available is a plain hyphen.

I used to use spaces in old crappy IDEs, but I use tabs now since most modern IDEs are intelligent enough to allow spaces and tabs to be used interchangeably with minimal hassle.

Yes, I think the last time I deliberately used spaces was back in ye olde days of RHide.

EDIT: that Jef Raskin(-inspired?) editor has the fastest text navigation I've ever used. Hold down a modifier and type, the editor jumps to the next instance of that text. Hold down an alternative modifier and it'll search for the previous instance.

8 spaces is too large for me. 3 is odd, so I prefer 4.

You use / to search forward in Vim, and ? to search backwards. Even Firefox uses / for quick search.

That's modal rather than quasimodal, which means that it takes more mental processing to make reflexive. Modal = need to keep more in your mind at once.

Essentially though, it's nice that bamccaig and I agree, even if I didn't realise it.

EDIT: I guess it's like the difference between CAPS LOCK and using the shift key. Except for a feature that you probably use much less frequently.

Ooh, I've just discovered tagging in Vim! \o/ Generate a tags file with ctags (not sure if it only supports C or if it has support for other languages... Maybe there are similar commands for other languages).

[bamccaig@rufus trunk]$ ctags `find -name \*.h -o -name \*.c`
[bamccaig@rufus trunk]$ vim tests/bam_list_test/src/main.c

From within Vim:

:tag bam_list_create

Vim automatically finds the definition of bam_list_create in src/bam_list.c (technically it just matches it in the tags file) and opens it.

** EDIT **

[bamccaig@rufus trunk]$ ctags --list-languages
Asm
Asp
Awk
Basic
BETA
C
C++
C#
Cobol
Eiffel
Erlang
Fortran
HTML
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Make
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Python
REXX
Ruby
Scheme
Sh
SLang
SML
SQL
Tcl
Vera
Verilog
Vim
YACC
[bamccaig@rufus trunk]$ 

Nvm.

That example at least undercuts anyone who might assume that text based software is inherently less featured. Though I doubt anyone here would. You know, other than making general observations about the correlations between launch date and probability of software being text based and between launch date and the probability of software having <arbitrary feature>.