[adolph]

To understand tabstops properly, you need to throw away the "They always expand to N spaces." idea. If you have access to a mechanical typewriter with tabstops, then go and look at how it works (with tabs being set by protruding pins on the carriage). Tabstops in terminals in the Unix and Linux worlds work this way.

https://superuser.com/questions/710019/why-there-are-11-tabs...

[Beltalowda]

If you use it as indention then "tab expands to n spaces" is actually accurate though.