Wow. While I agree that you don't need to know how to read standard music notation to be able to play an instrument, any instrument really. I have to say I'm surprised just how many people don't know how to read music. In my public grammar school everyone was required to take up an instrument and learn how to read music. I know that my home town had a fantastic music program, I guess I never realized just how good it was. It reminds me to make sure my sons learn to read music as they get older.
For guitar and uke, I prefer to go over the chord charts to a song first, to get a sense of it. Then I'll look up the tab notation, to pick up all the bits that the chords alone don't suggest. After that, for the most part, I'll try to find a recording of the song to listen to and play along with. Where I find tab more useful than standard notation would be is in getting a sense of how other players choose to finger the notes. When I play clarinet, this is never an issue. There's only really one way to play any given note, (with some exceptions) and so standard notation is the practical option. (You could write "tab" for a clarinet, but you won't ever find it on sheet music past an intro level guide.) I use tab as a way of figuring out what more advanced players suggest as the best configuration/hand position to get the notes I want. I see it like getting a bit of tutoring from whomever chose to write up the tab.
