.vimrc.after

" size of a hard tabstop
set tabstop=4

" size of an 'indent'
set shiftwidth=4

" a combination of spaces and tabs are used to simulate tab stops at a width
" other than the (hard)tabstop
set softtabstop=4

" make 'tab' insert indents instead of tabs at the beginning of a line
set smarttab

" always uses spaces instead of tab characters
set expandtab