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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The annual Stack Overflow developer surveys often include lots of bad news. "People still use PHP," for example, is a recurring and distressing theme. "Perl exists" is another.
But never before has the survey revealed something as devastatingly terrible as the 2017 survey. Using PHP and Perl are matters of taste. Extremely masochistic taste, certainly, but nobody is wrong for using those languages; it's just the programming equivalent of enjoying Adam Sandler movies. But the 2017 survey goes beyond taste; it goes into deep philosophical questions of right and wrong, and it turns out that being wrong pays more than being right.
Developers who use tabs to indent their code, developers who fight for truth and justice and all that is good in the world, those developers have a median salary of $43,750.
But developers who use spaces to indent their code, developers who side with evil and probably spend all day kicking kittens and punching puppies? Their median salary is $59,140.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KGIII on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:11AM (15 children)
Consistent display when sharing code on large projects.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:24AM (5 children)
Consistent display? Oh, you mean whitespace fascism. Might as well store your source in .pdf format.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:39AM (3 children)
I store my source in a docx file, you insensitive clod...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 18 2017, @02:06AM
I modded you funny, but that is some seriously dark humor. Not even the COBOL heads would do that...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:16AM (1 child)
My former room-mate claimed the
bankCredit Union she worked for did just that.Though her title was "systems analyst" rather than programmer.
She did not last long after pointing out it was easier to edit the raw document mark-up in wordpad.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @02:55PM
Instead of entering tabs you can code in an excel document and indent by starting a line one cell to the right.
(Score: 3, Funny) by KGIII on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:59AM
Well, now we see why you're paid less. Sheesh.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday June 18 2017, @02:33AM (7 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:03AM (5 children)
Uniformity has many benefits. It does, of course, depend on the standard. Consistency has been a great way to improve many things. Even the web has many standards, and some level of consistency - at least behind the scenes.
It's also pretty easy to change tabs to spaces with pretty much every editor and IDE. I'm not seeing how this is a lot of extra effort.
Personally, I don't care if it is tabs or spaces, so long as it is consistent for the project. However, if they mix them both together, I'd be hard pressed to pass down a guilty verdict for murder, if I were on the jury. If they mix them both in the same file, I would find that justifiable homicide.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:32AM (4 children)
Whoosh. Didn't criticize consistency. Criticized 'consistent display.'
Consistency is very important - at the right level.
Consistent display is simply not the right level.
"It's also pretty easy to change tabs to spaces with pretty much every editor and IDE. I'm not seeing how this is a lot of extra effort."
Who said it was a lot of extra effort?
"Personally, I don't care if it is tabs or spaces, so long as it is consistent for the project."
Imagine applying the same logic to, oh, building houses.
"Personally I don't care if you use the right material for those load-bearing columns or not, just as long as they all look the same."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Sunday June 18 2017, @04:28AM (3 children)
In order...
Consistent display is the benefit of consistency.
You're free to disagree with that being the right level. If you can't understand the benefits, I'm pretty sure I can't reason you away from that position. Have fun making less money.
There are many places look exactly the same. They were built to the same plan. Why? It is more efficient.
To use your attempt at a false equivalency, you're the construction worker and not the home owner.
If you don't understand the benefits of a consistent display, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's easier to work with, it's easier to collaborate, it can facilitate greater quality, it is more efficient, etc...
Consistency has enabled a great deal of modernity.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 18 2017, @04:52AM (2 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:18AM (1 child)
LOL
Are you the person up-thread, who uses comic sans and writes code in Word?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @12:05PM
Do your coding standards also enforce a specific font face and text size for your code, and dictate the code highlighting colors to use? Enforcing those would provide a more consistent presentation, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @08:28PM
I don't know if you're using spaces or tabs, but whichever one it is seriously mangled your font.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:36PM
I might want different indentation size on my phone compared to my 8K monitor or my AR display.
Everyone using actual tabs allows the source to have the same meaning while having different viewing indentation, even for stuff like Python.