From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 10 19:45: 0 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6BF0637B401 for ; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:44:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.rpi.edu (mail.rpi.edu [128.113.2.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CB2843F75 for ; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:44:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by mail.rpi.edu (8.12.1/8.12.1) with ESMTP id h1B3ioNr246828; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 22:44:50 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 22:44:48 -0500 To: "Simon L. Nielsen" From: Garance A Drosihn Subject: Re: Trailing whitespace in FreeBSD Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.3 (www dot roaringpenguin dot com slash mimedefang) Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 03:00 PM, Simon L. Nielsen wrote: >> >>I have noticed that that several FreeBSD files (.c, .h and so >>on) have trailing whitespace (spaces/tabs after last charecter >>on a line). >> >>Should I send patches for this, or is it not important to "fix"? It might be "nice" to fix, in some abstract sense, but it drives developers nuts if you modify a file that they've checked out a local copy of. They go to commit their change back in (a change which is usually something more significant than a damn trailing blank or tab character), and the commit runs into a conflict because someone else has "cleaned up" the source code. So, this is something that a developer might want to do if they are going to be working on some source file anyway. However, it can really irritate a lot of developers if it is done across the entire src tree "just because it is easy to do". Further, IMO it doesn't really help the FreeBSD project at all. Imagine a new release which said "And now with less blanks in the source code!" for the release notes. Our end-users would think we are nuts. It is better to tackle a harder project -- one which has an actual payback to the end users -- instead of looking for something this easy to do. Just my 2 cents. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message