Hi all, I like readable code, but I don't like formatting it myself. And I _really_ don't like discussing in code review. "Spotless" [1] can enforce - and automatically apply - automatic formatting for Java, Groovy, and some others.
This is not about style or wanting a particular layout. This is about automation, contributor experience, and streamlining review - Contributor experience: MUCH better than checkstyle: error message just says "run ./gradlew :beam-your-module:spotlessApply" instead of telling them to go in and manually edit. - Automation: You want to use autoformat so you don't have to format code by hand. But if you autoformat a file that was in some other format, then you touch a bunch of unrelated lines. If the file is already autoformatted, it is much better. - Review: Never talk about code formatting ever again. A PR also needs baseline to already be autoformatted or formatting will make it unclear which lines are really changed. This is already available via applyJavaNature(enableSpotless: true) and it is turned on for SQL and our buildSrc gradle plugins. It is very nice. There is a JIRA [2] to turn it on for the hold code base. Personally, I think (a) every module could make a different choice if the main contributors feel strongly and (b) it is objectively better to always autoformat :-) WDYT? If we do it, it is trivial to add it module-at-a-time or globally. If someone conflicts with a massive autoformat commit, they can just keep their changes and autoformat them and it is done. Kenn [1] https://github.com/diffplug/spotless/tree/master/plugin-gradle [2] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEAM-4394
