Set editor config before touching legacy code

This is part of the Semicolon&Sons Code Diary - consisting of lessons learned on the job. You're in the workflows category.

Last Updated: 2024-03-29

Align editor config before working on legacy code

When I began working on the Project M code, I just jumped in. This was a mistake. When I changed even one word in a file, even a README, git would show every line as having changed. This was because my editor made assumptions about the formatting (e.g. whitespace at line ends) and encoding (unix vs. windows) which were not true of the client (they were on windows, I was on unix)

Therefore I should have copied over their .editorconfig before starting. If they didn't have one, I should have created one, such that committing would work as expected.