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I still can't believe personalization isn't more widespread in coding. For instance, it ought to be reasonably trivial to set up your formatting preferences in

I still can't believe personalization isn't more widespread in coding. For instance, it ought to be reasonably trivial to set up your formatting preferences in your editor, but have the file saved to disk be in a common format. You want 8-space tabs and braces on their own lines? Cool. We'll save the file with all the formatting defaults, but run a formatter tuned to your preferences before displaying.

kaashif 4y ago
Here's my reason: if what I see on screen doesn't match the code actually being committed, that freaks me out. Same reason I don't like using those things where <= turns into ≤ in your editor but it's written to disk as <=.
- somethingsaid 4y ago
  Similarly, for some languages the meaning of what is written can change based on the indentation and line breaks. Or a statement written under one formatting standard can become significantly harder to read under a different formatting standard.
  - bsimpson 4y ago
    There are plenty of automated formatters - clang-format, prettier, gofmt, black. You would delegate to one of them, configurable in the project/editor, and adjustable by file extension. If the code doesn't parse, save it as-is. If it does, run the formatter with the defaults before saving. When opening, run the formatter with the user's preferences before displaying. Gets you the benefits of a formatter, with the freedom to control your environment to your tastes. You can already pick your editor, font, and color theme. You ought to be able to pick your formatter settings too.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
This invariably leads to fucked up diffs and useless blaming. In theory tabs are superior as a way to provide configurable layout but as soon as you have to collaborate between users with different tooling you end up in a mixed whitespace hellscape.
Beltalowda 4y ago
Accurate reporting of the error positions is one reason this is a non-trivial thing to implement. It's a fixable problem, just takes quite a bit of tooling and complexity for a good experience, and all things considered: is it really worth it?
throwaway27727 4y ago
Ask and receive: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/11/intellij-idea-2022-3-beta/#Visual_formatting_layer_in_Reader_mode https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/11/intellij-idea-2022-3...
coldpie 4y ago
IMO, the fact that personalization isn't more widespread is good evidence that code style doesn't actually matter. Humans adapt. So long as it doesn't actually interfere with the function of writing code (eg mixed tabs & spaces; wildly inconsistent identifier names), your reader will get over it quickly after some snide comments to their friends on IRC, and then work on the actual work that needs doing. I think people spend too much thought on this topic.

kaashif 4y ago

Here's my reason: if what I see on screen doesn't match the code actually being committed, that freaks me out. Same reason I don't like using those things where <= turns into ≤ in your editor but it's written to disk as <=.

somethingsaid 4y ago
Similarly, for some languages the meaning of what is written can change based on the indentation and line breaks. Or a statement written under one formatting standard can become significantly harder to read under a different formatting standard.
- bsimpson 4y ago
  There are plenty of automated formatters - clang-format, prettier, gofmt, black. You would delegate to one of them, configurable in the project/editor, and adjustable by file extension. If the code doesn't parse, save it as-is. If it does, run the formatter with the defaults before saving. When opening, run the formatter with the user's preferences before displaying. Gets you the benefits of a formatter, with the freedom to control your environment to your tastes. You can already pick your editor, font, and color theme. You ought to be able to pick your formatter settings too.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

This invariably leads to fucked up diffs and useless blaming. In theory tabs are superior as a way to provide configurable layout but as soon as you have to collaborate between users with different tooling you end up in a mixed whitespace hellscape.

Beltalowda 4y ago

Accurate reporting of the error positions is one reason this is a non-trivial thing to implement. It's a fixable problem, just takes quite a bit of tooling and complexity for a good experience, and all things considered: is it really worth it?

throwaway27727 4y ago

Ask and receive: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/11/intellij-idea-2022-3-beta/#Visual_formatting_layer_in_Reader_mode https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/11/intellij-idea-2022-3...

coldpie 4y ago

IMO, the fact that personalization isn't more widespread is good evidence that code style doesn't actually matter. Humans adapt. So long as it doesn't actually interfere with the function of writing code (eg mixed tabs & spaces; wildly inconsistent identifier names), your reader will get over it quickly after some snide comments to their friends on IRC, and then work on the actual work that needs doing. I think people spend too much thought on this topic.