Re: A bug in mark_constants () in varasm.c

[Wolfram Gloger <wmglo at dent dot med dot uni-muenchen dot de>]

> Just the same, it's unrealistic to implement many of the algorithms in
> gcc with only three indentation levels, so it's just wrong to declare
> that as a strict rule, and arrogant to say that those who violate it
> are bad programmers.  Sometimes it appears that Linus's success and
> fame has gone to his head a bit.

Just to set this straight: Linus never said that gcc developers were
bad programmers (or please show me a quote).  His posting in question
was clearly marked as being `religious', and specifically about _his
own_ coding standard (which is obviously aimed at kernel development):

Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:38:51 +0200
From: Linus Torvalds <Linus.Torvalds@cs.Helsinki.FI>
Message-Id: <199502031038.MAA27879@keos.Helsinki.FI>
Subject: Re: Coding Standards, anyone?
...
> I do have a standard of my own, BUT..  I know this is religious, and
> when it comes to device drivers that I don't expect to be able to update
> anyway and code like that, I allow almost any coding standard the author
> wants to use, as he's the one that will have to keep it up.  If somebody
> else takes over (and the original author obviously doesn't keep it up
> any more), the new person is free to change the style.  I'm happy to say
> that this has happened only a very few times. 
>
> Anyway, here's my standard in a nutshell, with comments (and if I don't
> always adhere to it 100%, it's only because sometimes I'm lazy too, but
> you'll find it true for almost all code I write):
...
> Coding style:
>  - not more than 4 levels of indentation, preferably not even more than
>    three levels. 
...
> There are *very* few reasons to break any of the above.  Just about the
> only good reason is to go beyond the function length limit: some
> functions are inherently "flat" (ie only a few levels of indentation)
> and obvious, but tend to be rather long just because it has a lot of
> equivalent cases that need testing.  This may be due to bad programming
> (trying to make one function do many things), but it can also be simply
> due to external circumstances (you get input you have no control over
> and have to make decisions upon that). 
...
> Anyway, this got longer than I intended it to be, and most of it is
> religious.  Ignore it if you wish, but you'll be sorry ;-)

I cannot see the declaration of strict rules or even arrogance in this
`sermon'.  One shouldn't take _everything_ Linus says too seriously.

Regards,
Wolfram.
-- 
`Surf the sea, not double-u three...'
wmglo@dent.med.uni-muenchen.de