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

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 12/31/2015 03:17 AM, John Wiegley wrote:

> I don't believe this is a realistic assessment of what will happen. I just
> don't.

I can't imagine it happening otherwise. What else? Tab-fueled users' 
rebellion on Emacs mailing lists?

> We don't know too many things, that's the point. You're suggesting an
> improvement based on what you think will be an improvement, while causing
> difficulties that you don't think will be worse overall.

Yes.

> But why change? What is the driving factor behind this request? Do we know
> we're actively losing users because we insert tabs when one presses the TAB
> key -- to such an extent that changing this default will keep those users? Is
> the change important enough that it's OK to annoy the people (our existing
> users) who will be surprised by this change?

Not losing, no. But probably failing to capture some potential new users.

Likewise, I don't believe we'll lose any users to changing the default. 
We should make Emacs 26 more attractive in other ways anyway, which will 
offset this minor inconvenience.