An abridged "Writing C" for the gcc web pages

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 05/03/2016 06:39 PM, Bernd Schmidt wrote:
> On 05/03/2016 09:59 PM, Richard Sandiford wrote:
>> 
>> And sometimes there are multiple acceptable ways of writing the
>> same code. Which wins is an aesthetic choice, which tools tend to
>> be bad at handling. E.g. if a parameter list is too long for a
>> line, there's often a choice of how to balance the parameters
>> across multiple lines, with some being more readable than others.
>> I wouldn't want the one chosen by a formatting tool to be the only
>> acceptable one.
> 
> I have all the same reservations about using tools for this. We don't
> call it "style" for nothing, it is not purely mechanical and until we
> have general-purpose AI I don't believe computers can do a
> satisfactory job. I've seen attempts to do so in the past, and they
> have failed - you invariably end up with humans contorting their code
> to have it pass the checker, which is entirely counterproductive.

This would be silly. I'd never impose the tool as a commit blocker.
We have strayed from the initial goal: Help new developers submit
well formatted patches, and learn by example using a tool.

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.