#Notepad++ python spacing tab software#
#Notepad++ python spacing tab code#
#Notepad++ python spacing tab professional#

To answer this, I fit a linear regression, predicting salary based on the following factors. If we control for all of the factors that we suspect could affect salary, how much effect does the choice of tabs/spaces have? Now that the raw data is available, I encourage other statisticians to check other confounders themselves. I did several other visual examinations of possible confounding factors (such as level of education or company size), and found basically the same results: spaces beat tabs within every group. Note that respondents could select multiple languages, so each of these groups are overlapping to some degree.

(This gave a similar result even when filtering for developers only in a specific country, or for ones with a specific range of experience). Yes, the effect existed within every subgroup of developers. The Developer Survey asked both about what programming languages each respondent uses (Python, Javascript, etc) and what “type” of developer they are ( web developer, embedded developer, etc).ĭid we see the same tabs/spaces gap within each of these groups? with DevOps developers more likely to use spaces and mobile developers more likely to use tabs), often because they use different editors and languages. The effect is smaller in Europe and especially large in India, but it does appear within each country, suggesting this isn’t the sole confounding factor.Īs another hypothesis, we know that different types of developers often use different indentation (e.g. We could examine this by considering whether the effect occurs within each country, for several of the countries that had the most survey respondents. For example, it’s conceivable that developers in low GDP-per-capita countries could be more likely to use tabs, and therefore such developers tend to have lower salaries on average. When I first discovered this effect, I assumed that it was confounded by a factor such as country or programming language. This is an amusing result, but of course it’s not conclusive by itself.

Developers who responded “Both” were generally indistinguishable from ones who answered “Tabs”: I’ll leave them out of many of the remaining analyses. (Note that all the results were converted into US dollars from each respondent’s currency). Indeed, the median developer who uses spaces had a salary of $59,140, while the median tabs developer had a salary of $43,750. Coders who use spaces for indentation make more money than ones who use tabs, even if they have the same amount of experience: Of them, 12,426 also provided their salary.Īnalyzing the data leads us to an interesting conclusion. Within this group, 40.7% use tabs and 41.8% use spaces (with 17.5% using both).

#Notepad++ python spacing tab professional#

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). 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. I use spaces, but I never thought it was particularly important.

#Notepad++ python spacing tab software#

This is a bit of a “holy war” among software developers one that’s been the subject of many debates and in-jokes.

#Notepad++ python spacing tab code#

Do you use tabs or spaces for code indentation?