Re: [PATCH] fix: added new BANNED_EXPL macro for better error messages, new parameter

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Taylor Blau <ttaylorr@github.com> writes:

>> Adding a comment around each of these definition may be OK.  Upon
>> seeing foo_is_a_banned_function, somebody new to the codebase would
>> look for where it is banned, and find the above, so that is a good
>> place to give guidance.
>
> Perhaps, but all of this information is already covered accurately in
> the patches that introduced each banned function. So I'm not sure that I
> even agree that this information is difficult to discover to begin with,
> but I may be biased.

To help those who are not yet familiar with this codebase but are
willing to learn, I tend to agree with you that it is a good idea
not to miss opportunities to encourage them to run "git blame" to
find out about the project history in the parts of the system that
pique their interest.  They will make more motivated contributors
who are invested in the project, if they stick around.

It would discourage and filter out "drive-by" contributors, though.

Somebody may not yet be interested enough to "git clone" us, but
happens to have an extract of distro source tarball and enough
motivation to try peeking and tweaking around.  To such a curious
developer, the "blame" information and log messages with the change
are not readily available, so there probably is some balance to be
struck.