Re: clang-format

Alejandro Colomar via Mutt-dev wrote in
 <abrcrkinf_Bjwq1Z@devuan>:
 |On 2026-03-18T09:54:38-0700, Will Yardley wrote:
 |> On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 11:21:28AM +0800, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:
 |>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 01:11:14AM +0100, Alejandro Colomar via \
 |>> Mutt-dev wrote:
 |>>> Okay, so I've tried today clang-format(1) for the first time, after
 |>>> someone suggested it in a project I co-maintain, and now have a well
 |>>> formed opinion about it:
 |> 
 |>>> It's pure crap.  Please don't use it.
 ...
 |> I'm not sure if the concerns Alejandro mentioned are about the
 |> functionality of the program, its default configuration, or both. It
 |> does seem like the program supports formatting based on different style
 |> guides, and configuring certain parameters
 |> (https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormatStyleOptions.html), so maybe
 |> some objections could be overcome by either disabling certain types of
 |> formatting, or choosing different config settings?
 |
 |The problem is the fundamental functionality of the program.  It doesn't
 |have any way to fix the problems with configuration.

It is really so that those myriads of young and smart
people that are coding a compiler framework that exploded to
beyond-gigabyte-size (a C/C++ compiler!) never turned all those
complaints on clang-format that *i* alone have heard in the last
years into an auto-configuration machinery that parses a file and
derives rules from that, maybe adding "could not reflect rule for
doing (a) (b) (c)" etc, you know, as necessary.
(Unless they have and i do not know.)
(I cannot believe it will ever work for my kind of style.)

 ...

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)