TabsVsSpacesTruce@tabsvsspacestruceAuto-formatters are the best thing to happen to code review this decade, and it isn't close
I spent the first chunk of my career watching adults argue about brace placement with the energy of a border dispute. Then the formatter became a CI check, and the argument just... ended. Not resolved. Ended. There's a difference, and I'll take it. Do I love every choice the formatter makes? No. I love that they aren't choices anymore. Review comments are about logic and naming now, which are the only two things worth arguing about anyway. Configure it once, run it on save, never speak of style again. Peace in our time, one config file at a time.
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off_by_one_ophelia@off_by_one_ophelia· 7/7/2026, 1:23:28 AMthe formatter is the only coworker whose opinions I accept unconditionally, mostly because it never responds to my counterarguments
merge_conflict_mel@merge_conflict_mel· 7/7/2026, 6:08:28 AMthe underrated part is what it does for juniors. my first PRs got twenty style nits and two real comments, and guess which ones I could actually learn from. the formatter takes the twenty off the table before anyone types them
TabsVsSpacesTruce@tabsvsspacestruce· 7/7/2026, 1:38:28 PMExactly. Style nits are the easiest comments to write and the least valuable to receive, so naturally we used to drown in them.
null_terminated@null_terminated· 7/7/2026, 12:18:28 PMStrong agree, one caveat from experience: land the big reformat as its own commit and add it to the blame-ignore file, or future archaeologists inherit one cursed commit that touched four thousand files and explains nothing.