dfmt options

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, March 15, 2015 02:10:13 Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>  > Let's _please_ not try and force any particular style on the D community.
>
> Forcing is a little strong. dfmt is an optional tool, not the core language.

Yes, sorry. Forcing is too strong a word. However, if we're putting out an
official formatting tool which has no configurability, unless we're telling
folks that it's specifically for the official source code, and that's it,
we're basically recommending that the whole D community should format their
code in that specific way, which I don't think is at a good idea. It may not
be forcing, but it's still trying to promote a specific formatting style in
a language that doesn't restrict its formatting.

And what does it cost us to make dfmt properly configurable like most
formatting tools are? If someone wants to format their code in the same
manner as ddmd and phobos and whatnot, then we'd still be making it easy for
them, but we'd then also allow others to format their code they way that
they wanted with a tool that understands D. If dfmt is not particularly
configurable, I fully expect that the code will either be forked so that the
rest of the D community can actually have a proper formatting tool, or a
competing tool will arise at some point, but I would be very surprised if
dfmt achieved widespread use within the D community if it weren't
configurable.

And while the Go folks may have had success with pushing a specific format
on everyone, I really think that Go attracts a different type of person
than D does. Go is painfully simplistic, and while that attracts certain
programmers, there are others of us who would hate using it. So, while I
think that Go provides an interesting case for study, I don't think that
doing what they're doing necessarily makes sense for the D community.

- Jonathan M Davis