Ah, tabs are bad, because if you let people choose their own tab widths then it becomes impossible to align anything anymore. It makes it impossible to align anything which is != a tab width.<p>Tabs aren&#x27;t &quot;designed&quot; for indenting text: they&#x27;re a hangover from typewriters, where they were literally metal tabs used for creating tables. Tabs don&#x27;t carry semantics - that&#x27;s the job of the language&#x27;s syntax. Tabs as a concept should be confined to history IMHO, especially their implementation in modern word processors, where they just give you ad-hoc semantic-less tables.<p>The tab <i>key</i> on the otherhand is great for indenting - in most sensible editors it will insert a configurable number of spaces. Perfect.