Re: [PATCH v4] Add .editorconfig file for basic formatting

[Íñigo Huguet]

On Fri, Jun 9, 2023 at 3:23 PM Mickaël Salaün <mic@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> On 09/06/2023 09:50, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > Íñigo Huguet <ihuguet@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> >> EditorConfig is a specification to define the most basic code formatting
> >> stuff, and it's supported by many editors and IDEs, either directly or
> >> via plugins, including VSCode/VSCodium, Vim, emacs and more.
> >>
> >> It allows to define formatting style related to indentation, charset,
> >> end of lines and trailing whitespaces. It also allows to apply different
> >> formats for different files based on wildcards, so for example it is
> >> possible to apply different configs to *.{c,h}, *.py and *.rs.
> >>
> >> In linux project, defining a .editorconfig might help to those people
> >> that work on different projects with different indentation styles, so
> >> they cannot define a global style. Now they will directly see the
> >> correct indentation on every fresh clone of the project.
> >>
> >> See https://editorconfig.org
> >>
> >> Co-developed-by: Danny Lin <danny@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> Signed-off-by: Danny Lin <danny@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> Signed-off-by: Íñigo Huguet <ihuguet@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > So I must confess to still being really nervous about installing a file
> > that will silently reconfigure the editors of everybody working on the
> > kernel source; I wish there were a straightforward way to do this as an
> > opt-in thing.  We're talking about creating a flag-day behavioral change
> > for, potentially, thousands of kernel developers.  Something tells me
> > that we might just hear from a few of them.
> >
> > I wonder if we should, instead, ship a file like this as something like
> > Documentation/process/editorconfig, then provide a "make editorconfig"
> > command that installs it in the top-level directory for those who want
> > it?
> >
> > Or perhaps I'm worrying too much?
>
> This is a legitimate concern. :)
>
> A safe approach would be to rename the ".editorconfig" file to something
> like ".editorconfig.default" and create ".editorconfig" symlinks in all
> (parent) directories where enforcing this rules don't change anything
> because the children files are already correctly formatted. Again, a
> script (provided in another patch) to check and potentially update such
> links would be useful.
>

I can't think of an easy way to create that script. Formatting is done
by each editor using the rules from .editorconfig, but I didn't find
any available good script or tool to check if a file complies or not.
Creating that script is not trivial.

I neither think it is good to enable it for some folders and not for
others: developers will be surprised of having assistance in some
files and not in others, I would be bothered with such inconsistency.

Right now I see 2 possibilities:
- Provide an .editorconfig.default so those that want to use it, can
do it. But I wouldn't mess with cherry-picking directories that
already complies and those that don't, just the developer chooses to
use it or not, and that's all.
- Provide an .editorconfig directly, and those that don't want to use
it, either disable it in their editors or manually delete the file.

Please tell me what approach you prefer.
-- 
Íñigo Huguet