RE: tabs v spaces in Emacs's source files

[Drew Adams]

I don't know whether the coding standard is strict in preferring TAB
characters, or why it would be. And I don't know if it is cast in concrete
or is open to suggestions. When we post patches, we generally create them
using `diff -c -w' AFAIK, which would seem to suggest an agnostic (or at
least a loose) approach to indenting whitespace.

FWIW, I prefer to work with code that uses TAB characters only where they
are pertinent - e.g. in strings. IOW, I use spaces for indenting. Turning on
highlighting of TAB chars then shows me only the places where a TAB
character is really important. I like those TABS to stand out; I don't like
the noise that comes from TABs used just to indent code. Just one opinion.