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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