Can we switch default "editor.tabSize" from 4 to 2 for indentation?

[trivikr]

I noticed that VSCode adds default editor.tabSize as 4
Is there a reason for doing this?

I went through some popular JavaScript projects, and noticed that all of them use 2 spaces for indentation:

• Vue https://github.com/vuejs/vue/blob/dev/src/server/render.js
• React https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/packages/react/src/React.js
• Yarn https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/blob/master/src/cli/index.js
• Electron https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/tools/get-endianness.js
• React Native https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/local-cli/util/assertRequiredOptions.js
• Redux https://github.com/reactjs/redux/blob/master/src/combineReducers.js
• Bootstrap https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/v4-dev/js/src/alert.js
• d3 https://github.com/d3/d3/blob/master/test/d3-test.js

When it comes to TypeScript projects, they also use 2 spaces for indentation:

• stimulus https://github.com/stimulusjs/stimulus/blob/master/scripts/dist-to-packages.js
• majestic https://github.com/Raathigesh/majestic/blob/master/src/main/menu.ts
• ant-design https://github.com/ant-design/ant-design/blob/master/scripts/sort-api-table.js
• angular https://github.com/angular/angular/blob/master/tools/check-environment.js
• deeplearnjs https://github.com/PAIR-code/deeplearnjs/blob/master/src/environment.ts
• loklak_search https://github.com/fossasia/loklak_search/blob/master/src/main.ts

Only Microsoft projects seem to use 4 spaces for indentation (may be because of C# influence?):

• VSCode https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/src/bootstrap.js
• TypeScript https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/blob/master/src/server/editorServices.ts

I noticed that popular JavaScript formatters/standards use 2 spaces for indentation:

• Prettier https://prettier.io/docs/en/options.html#tab-width
• Standard https://github.com/standard/standard#the-rules

Is the value of editor.tabSize 4 because VSCode is used for other languages (like Python) where 4-spaces is a standard?
If yes, can language specific indentation setting can be created (say javascript.tabSize)?

[usernamehw]

"[javascript]": {
  "editor.tabSize": 2
}

[trivikr]

Thanks @usernamehw, can the following code be added as default settings in VSCode?

"[javascript]": {
  "editor.tabSize": 2
}

[usernamehw]

I'm not the one to decide this.

[mjbvz]

1. Four spaces is a reasonable default IMO. It is not more or less right than 2 space indentation
2. You can very easily change it
3. Changing the default now would be super painful, as operations like format would suddenly start reformatting documents for any user that has not set editor.tabSize