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

[Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>]

Íñigo Huguet <ihuguet@redhat.com> 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@kdrag0n.dev>
> Signed-off-by: Danny Lin <danny@kdrag0n.dev>
> Signed-off-by: Íñigo Huguet <ihuguet@redhat.com>

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?

Thanks,

jon