Date: 23 Nov 2002 11:47:23 -0800 From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) To: David Schultz <dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU> Cc: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Style(9) question Message-ID: <8gof8g83w4.f8g@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <20021122214405.GA11011@HAL9000.homeunix.com> References: <20021122193040.GA23078@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20021122214405.GA11011@HAL9000.homeunix.com>
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David Schultz <dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU> writes: > Your complaint is a specific form of ``I don't like $requirement > in the style guide, can we change it?'' Everyone has a list of > criticisms like this, and that would be fine if we all had the > same set of beliefs about what the One True Style(9) should say. > (I, for one, don't agree with your specific quibble.) The present > style(9) is a compromise that we can all grudgingly agree on, > because it's better than having different styles strewn all over > the codebase. That last sentence has two problems. The first part is only true because the grudging agreement defines the "we". The second part is only true for some people. Others (almost all, I suspect) agree on it not because it's better or worse than having different styles, but because they need to "go along to get along" in response to a semi- civilized form of mob rule. In addition, I'll argue that having a single style is better only in particular cases and that the issue of "better than having different styles?" should be given priority over which style is best, in each case. The OP's complaint might better have been a form of: "there are too many requirements in the style guide, and this is one example of a requirement which, regardless of the merit of the particular style in each developer's mind (or that of whoever controls the style guide), costs more than it is worth for these reasons: "1) People waste more time fixing intrusions of the illegal style than would be spent by people illegally changing other people's style if there were no requirement (those changes being a well-known no-no). "2) The additional requirement screens out some potential developers who won't agree (even grudgingly) to develop under one too many requirements which they consider lame and over-burdensome. "3) The assumed benefit of a particular standard style has not been demonstrated, the style being more likely to be just a idiosyncratic artifact of a once-influential developer who got his way as a sort of ego-payment for services rendered." Even the fact that a particular style has 90% who strongly prefer it versus 10% who weakly dislike it shouldn't be a reason for making the style a requirement. There should be a demonstrable benefit of having the requirement. There would clearly be problems if indentation size was not standardized. But before arguing whether single statements should be bracketed or not, the need for any rule at all should be argued. I happen to think that benefits of standardizing this particular style are smaller than trouble it causes. It's easy for people to deal with a mixture of styles in this case. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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