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50 lines
2.3 KiB
50 lines
2.3 KiB
5 years ago
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title = "Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Code Formatting Tools Are Ok, But No Silver Bullet"
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date = 2019-07-16
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["en-au", "books", "things i learnt", "code formatting", "code style"]
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One thing a team may decide to fix the continuous flux of code style comments
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in a code review is to use a code formatting tool to auto-format the code.
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That's ok, but they should never rely on it.
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<!-- more -->
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Now yeah, that kinda solves the problem, but there is one small problem:
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we, humans, are not as flexible to read code as computers are; what is
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readable by a computer may not be readable by a human. Surely they try to
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create some heuristics on what is good for human reading, but that doesn't mean
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it gets right.
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Also, unless you start from scratch to use the auto-formatting tool or do a
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change in all files in one single go, you should never assume it will do a
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good job.
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I've seen tools like this implemented in a commit hook, in a way that the tool
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would reformat the code just before adding it to the repository. The biggest
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problem is that, in that team, we didn't run the auto-formatting tool in the
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whole project before hand, and we also added a coverage tool (that checked the
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coverage on the changed parts of the file) without every running the coverage
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tool on everything. The result is that, suddenly, a lot of commits got refused
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because the auto-formatting tool was changing lines that the developer didn't
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change (it changed old code) and suddenly the coverage tool noted the missed
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tests and decided it was no good.
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So good, punctual changes were suddenly being blocked 'cause instead of doing
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the whole thing in a single shot, people decided it was a good idea to let the
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code evolve till everything fixed itself.
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On top of that, some people who were neither in the mood to actually add the
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tests or worried about style found a way to do the commits _without running
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the hook_, so they basically skipped the whole "let's improve our code" and
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let fuck all.
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So, it's ok if you run the auto-formatting tool for yourself, but you need to
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have the maturity and responsibility to watch yourself and be willing to fix
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and take responsibility for other people's code when the formatter changes
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their code.
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{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/code-review-styles", prev_chapter_title="Code Reviews Are Not For Style") }}
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