bug#20322: 25.0.50; indent-tabs-mode should default to nil

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 04/21/2015 04:25 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> That suggests that it might be OK to set indent-tabs-mode to nil in
> javascript-mode and in elisp-mode.  Maybe even in C++.  But clearly not
> in C nor in Java.

C -- seems so. But I disagree about Java: my run was inconclusive, and 
the analysis I originally linked to, 
http://sideeffect.kr/popularconvention/#java (66% spaces), is almost 
(thought not quite) within the margin of error.

The "\s\s" vs "\s{8}" distinction is also unlikely to matter in that 
community, because if they do use tabs, it's almost always one tab per 
indent level. Any Java developers reading this should feel free to 
contradict me.

Considering that Java is a corporate-driven language, and both Oracle's 
and Google's Java style guides advise to use spaces, it seems to be the 
way to go.

Now, provided we agree to default to spaces in the majority of the 
popular programming languages modes, what's the reasoning not to flip 
the default? Have I missed some important languages (note that Python 
and Ruby are already covered), or is using tabs supposed to be 
beneficial for the text modes?