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by crehn 1602 days ago
> Changing a couple of bytes in a file? Don't change the style. Writing something new? Figure out what's best. Rewriting a big chunk? Make reasonable formatting choices.

This is exactly the type of arguably useless effort we don't want to spend any time on. Having to think about what is "reasonable", "allowed", or "best" is non-negligible cognitive burden for both the writer and reviewer/reader.

1 comments

When I use black or other formatter, I have to exert cognitive effort to anticipate how the formatter will format the code so that I can avoid the inevitable stupid formatting decisions.

I often then tweak the code in a way that is not necessarily better, it's merely rendered better by black.

It just feels like I'm fighting against the tool half of the time.