New chapter: auto-formatters

content/books/things-i-learnt/_index.md

@@ -64,3 +64,4 @@ template = "section-contentless.html"
 	* ["Right Tool For The Job" Is Just To Push An Agenda](right-tool-agenda)
 	* [The Right Tool Is More Obvious Than You Think](right-tool-obvious)
 	* [Code Reviews Are Not For Style](code-reviews-style)
+	* [Code Formatting Tools Are Ok, But No Silver Bullet](code-formatters)

content/books/things-i-learnt/code-formatters/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
++++
+title = "Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Code Formatting Tools Are Ok, But No Silver Bullet"
+date = 2019-07-16
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["en-au", "books", "things i learnt", "code formatting", "code style"]
++++
+
+One thing a team may decide to fix the continuous flux of code style comments
+in a code review is to use a code formatting tool to auto-format the code.
+That's ok, but they should never rely on it.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+Now yeah, that kinda solves the problem, but there is one small problem:
+we, humans, are not as flexible to read code as computers are; what is
+readable by a computer may not be readable by a human. Surely they try to
+create some heuristics on what is good for human reading, but that doesn't mean
+it gets right.
+
+Also, unless you start from scratch to use the auto-formatting tool or do a
+change in all files in one single go, you should never assume it will do a
+good job.
+
+I've seen tools like this implemented in a commit hook, in a way that the tool
+would reformat the code just before adding it to the repository. The biggest
+problem is that, in that team, we didn't run the auto-formatting tool in the
+whole project before hand, and we also added a coverage tool (that checked the
+coverage on the changed parts of the file) without every running the coverage
+tool on everything. The result is that, suddenly, a lot of commits got refused
+because the auto-formatting tool was changing lines that the developer didn't
+change (it changed old code) and suddenly the coverage tool noted the missed
+tests and decided it was no good.
+
+So good, punctual changes were suddenly being blocked 'cause instead of doing
+the whole thing in a single shot, people decided it was a good idea to let the
+code evolve till everything fixed itself.
+
+On top of that, some people who were neither in the mood to actually add the
+tests or worried about style found a way to do the commits _without running
+the hook_, so they basically skipped the whole "let's improve our code" and
+let fuck all.
+
+So, it's ok if you run the auto-formatting tool for yourself, but you need to
+have the maturity and responsibility to watch yourself and be willing to fix
+and take responsibility for other people's code when the formatter changes
+their code.
+
+{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/code-review-styles", prev_chapter_title="Code Reviews Are Not For Style") }}

content/books/things-i-learnt/code-reviews-style/index.md

@@ -29,4 +29,4 @@ On the other hand, if you find something weird in the code which is something
 you want the author to recheck, _then_ you're free to comment that "it would
 be good" if they fix the style. But that's it.
 
-{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/right-tool-obvious", prev_chapter_title="The Right Tool Is More Obvious Than You Think") }}
+{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/right-tool-obvious", prev_chapter_title="The Right Tool Is More Obvious Than You Think", next_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/right-tool-obvious", next_chapter_title="The Right Tool Is More Obvious Than You Think") }}