Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

people properly configuring their editor

A lot of coding is reading examples online these days. Trying to read Go code on GitHub is awful since three forced tab indents feels like you're 50% across the screen already (and forget trying to read it on mobile).

Browsers don't really have a "set tab width" option that I've found (and forget trying to set user options on mobile browsers).

a check against nesting code too much.

For expert programmers coding for long-term correctness, then yes. But beginners and lean "we just gotta ship this shit" startups will just create 9 levels of unreadable cruft.



Github allows you to set the tab size to <n> when viewing code by add ing "?ts=<n>" to the end of the url. I don't know if there is a way to set it for an account.


> Browsers don't really have a "set tab width" option that I've found.

The `tab-width` CSS property is supported by all browsers except MSIE, though only for integer amount of spaces (aside from Chrome 42 which supports arbitrary widths). In most desktop browsers can setup a "user css" to set it.

> For expert programmers coding for long-term correctness, then yes. But beginners and lean "we just gotta ship this shit" startups will just create 9 levels of unreadable cruft.

Would their unreadable cruft be any more readable with a tabwidth of 4 or (god forbid) 2?




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: