Do we need to change all tabs into four spaces?
A while back I proposed a code golf specific feature request.
I now come to this community to discuss how this feature may be interesting to many sites throughout the network. In sites that are not technologically oriented tabulation may present a convenient way to format items. However, for a significant portion of technologically-oriented sites (Super User, Stack Overflow, Code Review) whitespace sensitive code is presented. Major languages like python are dependent on the whitespace in the source. Also, C makefiles generally need tabs for proper functioning. Pasting in sources from these environments is common and we should not make it more challenging to do so.
As far as I know, allowing users to type tabs into questions presents no significant challenge or risk to this network's security. Would it be possible to make this change?
Code-golf specific argument
It may make more sense to stop expanding tabs into four spaces. If the browser side code can be made to render tabs as four spaces, this issue is moot. Some submissions especially in languages like Python (and to an even greater extent whitespace) answers as well as some input samples require a literal tab in the source and there should be a way to indicate that.
Pros
- Support across a wide range of source environments
- User experience
Cons
- Mildly inconsistent formatting
Overall, I do feel (and this opinion is backed by the lack of downvotes on the linked meta post) that this network would significantly benefit from this change. Please strongly consider this appeal.