Date: 2024-05-27
Status: accepted
Import order matters. It determines the order in which modules will be evaluated. Most of the time this doesn't make an impact on the user experience. So the import order normally doesn't actually matter.
Having a pre-defined way to sort imports can reduce the amount of noise in PRs, especially when people's editors handle automatic imports differently.
Having the editor yell at you because the import order is not correct is super annoying, but having the editor do this automatically is nice. If it's something you don't even have to think about then it's fine.
Prettier is often used for formatting. Changing the import order isn't really formatting though, so even though there is a plugin to make Prettier format the import order, it has a few limitations, and it's philosophically counter to the purpose of Prettier because changing the import order technically affects the semantics of the code.
ESLint on the other hand can handle this for us automatically and allows us to
customize the order itself a bit better. Additionally, if you have a side effect
import (like import './foo.js'), it doesn't enforce the import order.
Use the eslint-plugin-import-x plugin to sort imports.
People who don't like the sorting will need to disable it either inline or in their own config.