Re: [PATCH] 0/3 coding standards documentation/code updates

Randy Dunlap
2007-09-29T20:15:42Z

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:56:38 -0400 J. Bruce Fields wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 11:18:05AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > I'm not very happy with this.
> >
> > "CodingStyle" should be about the big issues, not about details. Yes,
> > we've messed that up over the years, but let's not continue that.
> >
> > In other words, I'd suggest *removing* lines from CodingStyle, not adding
> > them. The file has already gone from a "good general principles" to "lots
> > of stupid details". Let's not make it worse.
>
> It'd be nice to split the current CodingStyle into two documents:

I agree. This is just what I was thinking during lunch.

> - A shorter CodingStyle that gives the spirit of the style
> (short functions, minimal nesting, logic as straightforward as
> possible, etc.), and addresses the most commonly repeated
> mistakes, without so much detail that people's eyes glaze
> over. You want to be able to recommend it to your students
> (or whoever) in reasonable confidence that they'll actually
> read it and have fun (leave the jokes in!). Currently I'm
> suspicious that it's becoming something that everybody
> recommends but noone bothers to sit down and read anymore
> unless they're working on it.
>
> - A CodingStyleReference that's just a long dry list of rules,
> organized to make it easy to look up an individual rule when
> needed. That'd also take the pressure of CodingStyle to
> accept every new detail.
>
> It'd be a start just to revert CodingStyle to its original content and
> move the rest to CodingStyleReference. But someone would want to skim
> through the CodingStyle history for any legimate corrections that we
> want to keep.

---
~Randy
Phaedrus says that Quality is about caring.