Re: [dev] [dmenu] [PATCHES 1-5] Changes and cleanup

From: Eric Pruitt <eric.pruitt_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 06:58:46 -0800

On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 10:28:40AM +0100, FRIGN wrote:
> I hope you saw these patches are for dmenu, not dwm. However, your
> arguments still apply because there is a small set of patches for dmenu.

Ah, you're right. I _did_ think this was for dwm; my mistake.

> Still, for the sake of preserving compatibility with existing patches,
> you wouldn't be able to change anything in the codebase without breaking
> one. You can't just bring the project to a standstill as soon as a given
> number of patches has been written for it.

Breaking patches because functionality has been changed is completely
different from breaking patches for style reasons alone IMO, and most
projects don't have such a patch-happy userbase making the change less
destructive. Imagine how many Linux kernel contributors' branches would
break if there was a style refactoring of its codebase.

> The style(9)-changes were absolutely necessary and it's better to do this
> as early as possible instead of waiting and waiting until it's too late
> and you have a really big number of patches for a given program.

The thing I dislike most about the style changes is the alignment of
variable and function definitions, and the reason I don't like
alignment-based definitions is because the moment you need to add a new
variable or function that has a column that's one character longer than
the existing definitions, you end up with a diff that modifies a bunch
of a lines that are not necessarily related to the new feature.

Eric
Received on Tue Dec 23 2014 - 15:58:46 CET