Representing 32 consecutive columns as spaces is annoying.
I'm a little unclear on why that's so. If I'm moving the cursor vertically through code, I don't want it jumping around as it passes through white space. If I'm moving horizontally, I generally use emacs by-word operations, not character keys, so the makeup of white space is irrelevant.
What kind of navigation are you doing that makes runs of spaces annoying?
To turn around Kenneth's argument, in this day and age when every editor can handle tabs very well, is there any reason to use spaces slavishly for columns?
It's not a matter of whether they handle tabs well, but whether they handle them consistently.
I recall also a rule of thumb that one should not optimize code prematurely. Before making a cost argument, it would be useful to see what percentage of the source code is white space and how much of a savings would occur if runs of spaces were converted to equivalent 8-column tabs. I'd guess that it's comparable to the space wasted in the "slack" space at the end of a file's last sector. Does anyone care enough about that issue to do the analysis?
