5/10    How bad an idea is it to change my editor's tab stops to 4? Does that
        mess up lots of things? is 8 standard?
        \_ Bad.  Yes.  Yes.
           Mostly because if people view your code in an editor that
           doesn't have tabstops of 4, it'll likely scroll off the side and
           look ugly.  (Also happens if you read it with more/less.)
        \_ My editor can be set to insert X spaces instead of a hard tab.  I
           set it to 4 spaces so I don't have the "how big is *your* tab?"
           problem the above person is talking about.  Or you can just tab and
           when you're done do a global search/replace of tab to 4 spaces.
           \_ Global-replace TAB with 4 spaces won't work.  You need to replace
              with anything between 1 and 4 spaces.  M-x untabify in emacs is
              good.
              \_ If, however, tabs only occur at the beginning of a line,
                 search & replace will work fine.
                 \_ I only tab at the beginning.  Why is anyone tabbing at
                    some random location after real code?
                    \_ in perl, i often use tabs to make hashes more
                       readable.
                    \_ To add comments at the end of the line in C code.
        \_ Won't work. Some people might actually type in the X spaces
           as opposed to using tab.
        \_ Use emacs mode lines rookies!!
           \_ emacs is for wimps.  You *know* which editor is the standard....
              \_ eight switches.
              \_ notepad.exe ?
              \_ cat
              \_ the big magnet in my pocket?
              \_ :set tabstop=4
              \_ EDLIN