Re: Coding convention: use of `!x' vs. `! x'

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Tim Josling wrote:
> 
> Before adding new standards I think it would be better to have
> the existing standards followed more closely eg comments and
> meaningful variable names. At present these are the major hurdles
> in front of anyone wanting to help with GCC. In particular the
> configure/make files are a major 'swamp of no return'.

Unfortunately almost everything in configure/make is there for
a reason, as people have discovered when they got ambitious
and tried to remove things, and the constraints are pretty
severe - must need only /bin/sh, vanilla make, etc.  Even so,
the system is complicated for everybody, even those who've
been working with it for a long time, and we would certainly
welcome changes that simplify things.

> Maybe it is deliberable to stop people who don't know what they
> are doing from getting involved.

Heh heh, I don't know any GNU developers that are quite that
clever!  We all have a common interest in making things as
simple as possible.

> Are there any programs to test for FSF standards compliance,
> realizing that full checking is not possible, you could check
> quite a lot.

GNU indent followed by diff is pretty useful, any differences
point to variations from the standard.  People should be aware
that the GNU standards are actually recommendations rather than
ironclad rules, and it's up to individual projects to decide
how closely to adhere to them, and which way to go when the
standard does not make a single specific recommendation.  For
instance, GDB has policies (such as the use of ISO C) that are
different from GCC's policies.

Stan
shebs@apple.com