Hasty Treat - Getting Buy-in for a Tool Like Prettier From Your Team
Apr 27, 2020
Scott and Wes delve into the art of gaining team support for new tools like Prettier. They tackle the common resistance from senior developers, who might feel anxious about change. Strategies for demonstrating the benefits of automated code formatting are discussed, emphasizing readability and consistency. The importance of aligning new tools with existing coding standards for smoother adoption is highlighted. They also explore alternatives to Prettier for those who prefer different formatting styles, fostering a productive discussion on teamwork in development.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Ask for Opinions
Ask for opinions on tools instead of suggesting changes.
Frame questions as seeking advice to avoid negative reactions.
insights INSIGHT
Senior Dev Resistance
Senior developers can feel threatened by new developers suggesting changes.
They are also wary of introducing new tools that might break existing code.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Focus on Benefits
Focus on the tool's benefits, not on criticizing existing practices.
Showing how a tool improves readability can make it more appealing.
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In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about getting buy-in from your team when using new tools.
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Show Notes
02:53 - Q: "I wrote a long message to our architect asking if I could install prettier into our component generator for new projects moving forward, and the response I got was: “Don’t auto-format, not all devs want that and prettier doesn’t always format the way I like, I don’t want to enforce that on devs.”
This sucks because I know the codebase would benefit so much. Right now every time I visit a project so much of the code is not spaced out that it makes it hard to read quickly for me, lots of the React code is bunched up with no spacing - it’s a mess to read for me especially because I am very organized. If this was your situation where you know a new tool/standard is something that can help a lot but it’s shot down, do you just give up? I don’t know how to respond to this because I am the only dev who has ever proposed this at my company and I just started here.
05:03 - Lots to unpack here
Some senior devs don’t like getting suggestions from other devs. There is a sense that these things change quickly and I bet there is some anxiety over that at play here.
Senior devs know better than to slap new tools into the codebase because they have probably done it and regretted it. What if it broke your code.
08:20 - So what can you do?
Ask for their thoughts on a tool instead of suggesting it - it seems you have done this already
Show the dev that even though it looks weird, it’s better for readability.
Look at existing guidelines and try to match the settings as close as possible (not always an option with prettier).
Put together a solid argument for it, written down.
Use it in a smaller project. Everyone is against prettier at first, but once they use it, they realize how amazing it is.
Can you just Prettier the code yourself and then format it otherwise before you check it in? This depends on if you have existing formats.
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