Set your IDE to convert tabs to spaces, and avoid the headache of using vi in production and having your formatting totally destroyed. I grew up learning C and it was more efficient to write code with tabs. Switching to spaces would be quite the transition now, so I just set tab presses to "soft tabs" which converts the tab press to multiple spaces (*2 or *4, whichever one prefers). Problem solved.
Set your IDE to convert tabs to spaces, and avoid the headache of using vi in production and having your formatting totally destroyed. I grew up learning C and it was more efficient to write code with tabs. Switching to spaces would be quite the transition now, so I just set tab presses to "soft tabs" which converts the tab press to multiple spaces (*2 or *4, whichever one prefers). Problem solved.