Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs (stackoverflow.blog)

Posted by msmash on from the settling-the-debate dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Do you use tabs or spaces for code indentation? This is a bit of a "holy war" among software developers; one that's been the subject of many debates and in-jokes. I use spaces, but I never thought it was particularly important. But today we're releasing the raw data behind the Stack Overflow 2017 Developer Survey, and some analysis suggests this choice matters more than I expected. There were 28,657 survey respondents who provided an answer to tabs versus spaces and who considered themselves a professional developer (as opposed to a student or former programmer). Within this group, 40.7% use tabs and 41.8% use spaces (with 17.5% using both). Of them, 12,426 also provided their salary. Analyzing the data leads us to an interesting conclusion. Coders who use spaces for indentation make more money than ones who use tabs, even if they have the same amount of experience. Indeed, the median developer who uses spaces had a salary of $59,140, while the median tabs developer had a salary of $43,750.

4 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Did they take language into account? by RobinH · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd think that space vs. tab use is highly dependent on which programming language you're using, and I'd also think that language is correlated with earnings, so I highly doubt this conclusion (if they're trying to conclude anything). Correlation is not causation.

    --
    "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
  2. Possible Explanation... by sycodon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Using spaces to indent is really kind of an OCD thing to do. There's the time and the counting and then redoing when you change something.

    So maybe the real lesson is the OCD programmers make a bit more than non-OCD programmers.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Possible Explanation... by DrStrangluv · · Score: 5, Interesting

      > For Python, I always use spaces since whitespace is part of the syntax. For other languages, I am not even sure. I would need to look at my .emacs file.

      I think you've hit the crux of it. Emacs, Visual Studio, and Eclipse (at least) all use tabs by default. What we may be seeing is a selection for people who know enough about their environment to configure it to work for them.

  3. Re:Both? by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The reason that most places don't have these check in hooks is simple - rule 1 in all good style guides is "if breaking the style guide in one off cases makes code substantially clearer, break the style guide."

    Humans need to have the ability to say "no, in this one case it makes sense to do something odd to make this code readable".