Scott and Wes sit down with Vjeux from Meta to dive deep into the origins and evolution of Prettier, the widely-used code formatter. They discuss the challenges faced, the decision-making process behind its features, and what the future holds for this indispensable tool in the developer’s toolkit.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 01:45 Brought to you by Sentry.io.
• 02:19 New swag!
• 03:25 Who is Vjeux?
• 06:56 Is management the key to successful projects?
• 08:50 The genesis of Prettier.
• 12:08 Why other JS formatters didn’t work.
• 16:56 Focusing on edge-cases.
• 17:41 The goal for Prettier.
  • Prettier Philosophy.
• 18:31 Next step, integrations.
• 19:37 Should you run Prettier on save or commit?
• 21:34 Does Prettier’s limitations lead to higher adoption?
  • Prettier Config.
• 25:01 What was the most controversial default setting?
• 28:14 Does Facebook use semicolons?
• 29:18 Getting approval to devote 6 months to Prettier.
• 31:42 Working with Mark Zuckerberg.
• 32:43 Was there ever consideration to augment ESLint instead?
  • Prettier vs. Linters.
• 35:34 What are your thoughts on the Rust-based alternatives?
• 36:44 Prettier’s $10,000 bounty.
• 39:32 What is the future of Prettier?
• 44:54 Prettier is available in almost every language.
• 47:59 Advice for other open-source maintainers.
• 53:26 Sick Picks & Shameless Plugs.

Sick Picks

• Vjeux: TransformersJS.

Shameless Plugs

• Vjeux: Prettier x Syntax Swag.

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