Re: RFA: change K&R to ISO

Joel Brobecker
2008-09-28T16:58:11Z

> Pedro> OK. Obvious even nowadays?
>
> I considered that, but I tend to be conservative when applying the
> obvious rule. Usually I think I only use it for clearly incorrect
> comments, typos, and build breakages. That said, I'm happy to follow
> whatever the gdb guidelines actually are.

I think it's always better to be more conservative than the opposite,
particularly when the change contains a lot of hunks. But on the other
hand, my approach (and this is my opinion, not necessarily the opinion
of the GDB maintainers) has always been that it's not the end of the world
if one small change that was considered obvious by a contributor wasn't
so obvious to someone else. It's pretty easy to back out a change after
the fact.

Back the specific issue of converting from K&R to ISO: The change is
fairly mechanical, so the chances of making a mistake are really small.
Also, adding a review-before-commit step adds to the "cost" of making
the change. Allowing contributors to commit these changes using the
obvious rule can only encourage more of these changes.

--
Joel