From owner-freebsd-arch Tue Oct 2 23:42:23 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx.wgate.com (mail.wgate.com [38.219.83.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C576A37B403 for ; Tue, 2 Oct 2001 23:42:17 -0700 (PDT) To: Warner Losh Cc: Julian Elischer , Paul Richards , John Baldwin , arch@FreeBSD.ORG Received: From MAIL.TVOL.NET (10.1.1.4[10.1.1.4 port:4760]) by mx.wgate.comMail essentials (server 2.429) with SMTP id: <29864@mx.wgate.com>transfer for ; Wed, 3 Oct 2001 2:40:27 AM -0400 ;transfer smtpmailfrom X-MESINK_Inbound: 0 X-MESINK_MailForType: SMTP X-MESINK_SenderType: SMTP X-MESINK_Sender: rjesup@wgate.com X-MESINK_MailFor: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from jesup.eng.tvol.net ([10.32.2.26]) by mail.tvol.net with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13)id 4BWN0M60; Wed, 3 Oct 2001 02:40:34 -0400 Reply-To: Randell Jesup Subject: Re: Style Wars References: <6bdeb355057b0307d1@[192.168.1.4]> From: Randell Jesup Date: 03 Oct 2001 02:46:56 -0400 In-Reply-To: Warner Losh's message of "Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:31:45 -0600" User-Agent: Gnus/5.0807 (Gnus v5.8.7) Emacs/20.7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii x-receiver: arch@FreeBSD.ORG x-sender: rjesup@wgate.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <7fffe858038bd607d1@[192.168.1.4]> Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Warner Losh writes: >: > I think stating intent, rather than method will reduce a lot of the >: > quibbling over style issues because people will understand what's bein= g >: > aimed for and won't bridle so much over dogmatic rules. > >The difficult part in doing intent based rules is that in the past we >was many style commits back and forth as different people interpreted >the rules differently. The more rigid the rules, the more anybody >will know if things are in compliance. I consider these to be different issues. If you have a purposely vague rule ("line things up and order them so as to be readable and improve= understandibility of the code" or some such), then it's really hard to be "out of compliance". Someone may disagree over what's more readable, but it's hard to argue unless it's really screwey. You could state that when modifying code, you should attempt to follow the existing style within the file. However, I think both a _rigid_ style and/or lots of carping over style (style commits, major style rework of submissions, etc) merely serves= to slow down development and reduce interest in submitting patches, with little if any gain. I can't say that any of the styles here being discussed would improve matters much if at all over letting people choose a= style that promotes understanding that particular bit of code. I know for certain that after the experience of getting whacked over style issues on the one patch I submitted I became much less interested in submitting patches in the future. Also, even the excessively= rigid style dictums for code (as opposed to structs) caused several people to disagree over whether they were followed or not. None of the discussion= was over whether my code was readable; I'm quite certain that a number of the changes requested for style(9) issues _reduced_ the clarity of the code= to anyone (not just to me). State intent, and give examples and preferences, but don't spend immense numbers of hours worrying about style(9) like we do now. Stop worrying about rearranging the deck chairs. There are bigger fish to fry. IMHO. (Yes, I know my comments here are futile, but I have to try.) -- Randell Jesup, Worldgate Communications, ex-Scala, ex-Amiga OS team rjesup@wgate.com "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safet= y deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message