Birth of Prettier • Hacker News Board

Re: Birth of Prettier

#51

Post by floydnoel » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

nxrabl wrote: post #44

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds similar to my personal history of adopting StandardJS ( https://github.com/standard/standard ) as soon as it appeared, doing the same at the org I was at the time. Based on memory, seems StandardJS appeared before Prettier in the ecosystem? It seems weird that StandardJS wasn't mentioned in this article, as surely the author must have known about it before starting Prettier. Still to this day I just use Standa…

Standard always struck me as kind of scummy - it tries to present itself as something bigger than what it really is, which is a tiny CLI wrapper around one guy’s ESLint config. You have to scroll way down the FAQ section before ESLint even gets mentioned. The author is just squatting on the “standard” namespace and using it to blag his way into relevance. Think how much more good it would do if the sponsors of this p…

this 100% is why it isn't mentioned. StandardJS is just a scam that nobody uses except new devs who get tricked by its pervasive marketing.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#52

Post by 1718627440 » Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

jjj123 wrote: post #27

normie3000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> format-on-save A dystopian feature!

I love format on save. I can type (or paste) ignoring whitespace, hit save, and everything pops right into place for me. Also, stuff not auto formatting is usually immediate feedback that I didn’t match my parenthesis or have some other major syntax error.

I do care about my whitespace and it does have meaning. Throwing it all away on safe sounds annoying.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#53

Post by rkomorn » Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

jjj123 wrote: post #27

normie3000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> format-on-save A dystopian feature!

I love format on save. I can type (or paste) ignoring whitespace, hit save, and everything pops right into place for me. Also, stuff not auto formatting is usually immediate feedback that I didn’t match my parenthesis or have some other major syntax error.

100% agree. Autoformatting is such a great feedback mechanism.

Did this not indent where I expected? Did it not change the formatting?

Do I use it as a crutch? Maybe. Would I be a better programmer if I didn't use it? I doubt it.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#54

Post by rkomorn » Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

1718627440 wrote: post #52

jjj123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love format on save. I can type (or paste) ignoring whitespace, hit save, and everything pops right into place for me. Also, stuff not auto formatting is usually immediate feedback that I didn’t match my parenthesis or have some other major syntax error.

I do care about my whitespace and it does have meaning. Throwing it all away on safe sounds annoying.

I care about my vertical white space (eg: grouping some things together gives me some logical separation).

I don't care about horizontal white space. That should just properly get indented and spaced into a consistent block format.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#55

Post by 1718627440 » Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 10:00 AM UTC

rkomorn wrote: post #54

1718627440 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do care about my whitespace and it does have meaning. Throwing it all away on safe sounds annoying.

I care about my vertical white space (eg: grouping some things together gives me some logical separation). I don't care about horizontal white space. That should just properly get indented and spaced into a consistent block format.

Fine, I do. Also most tools don't get the difference between indenting and aligning and mess that up.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#56

Post by jjj123 » Sun, Oct 12, 2025, 11:49 PM UTC

1718627440 wrote: post #52

jjj123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love format on save. I can type (or paste) ignoring whitespace, hit save, and everything pops right into place for me. Also, stuff not auto formatting is usually immediate feedback that I didn’t match my parenthesis or have some other major syntax error.

I do care about my whitespace and it does have meaning. Throwing it all away on safe sounds annoying.

Sure, but it sounds like you have a problem with prettier/white space auto-formatters in general? My comment was assuming you want an auto-formatter, and I gave the reasons for why you’d want it to apply on save vs format-on-commit or w/e.

Re: Birth of Prettier

#57

Post by TranquilMarmot » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC

jjj123 wrote: post #27

normie3000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> format-on-save A dystopian feature!

I love format on save. I can type (or paste) ignoring whitespace, hit save, and everything pops right into place for me. Also, stuff not auto formatting is usually immediate feedback that I didn’t match my parenthesis or have some other major syntax error.

Yes, some people do not see the light. Ever since starting to rely on prettier + format on save, I can just bang out code and focus more on content than formatting and let it handle everything for me. Speed multiplier.