Well, clearly the fixed width font came first in computer programming. So yeah, I'm sure I pick the words because I use a fixed width font.
Using a variable width font would pose many problems to the editor and you'd have to have tabs on the "inside" of a line (as opposed to just having them on the front). That isn't necessarily bad, just much different from how I currently currently code.
And aligning to a tab stop is not always what I want--you'd need a tab character that didn't mean "go to the next tab stop" but instead meant "line me up with the corresponding tab in the previous and next lines at the minimum possible distance". That seems annoying and probably not worth it.
Using a variable width font would pose many problems to the editor and you'd have to have tabs on the "inside" of a line (as opposed to just having them on the front). That isn't necessarily bad, just much different from how I currently currently code.
And aligning to a tab stop is not always what I want--you'd need a tab character that didn't mean "go to the next tab stop" but instead meant "line me up with the corresponding tab in the previous and next lines at the minimum possible distance". That seems annoying and probably not worth it.