S/390: Fix backtrace support for Java

[Michael Matz]

Hi,

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Hans-Peter Nilsson wrote:

> > libjava/ ChangeLog:
> >
> > 	* configure.in (HAVE_BACKTRACE) [s390*-*-linux*]: Define.
>
> A common changelog error: that means something else (see
> GNU coding standards).  Should be

I noticed your struggle to "correct" ChangeLog entries using this style,
to make them use the other style.  As this happened repeatedly I counted
the number of ChangeLog entries which used the <> style with:

% grep "<[^@]*>" ChangeLog* | grep -v "\.h>" | wc -l
121

while the [] style is used
% grep "\[[^@]*\]" ChangeLog* | grep -v "\.h\]" | wc -l
822

times.  Not all of those entries reflect usage like above, but visually
verifying them reveals that most of them fit here.  The use of [] dates
back until FSFChangeLog.11, 1997.

You also often refered to the GNU coding standards.  Those only mention
two things:  1) to mention changes conditional to on #define, [] should be
used, and 2) to indicate the part of a function of a change, <> should be
used.

"part" of a function is not further defined.  From 1) and 2) above does
not follow, that for switch cases specifically <> should be used, or that
[] is not allowed.

Furthermore I claim, that using [] for differencing all the cases in
question is clear for all readers of the ChangeLog.  The important
property of [] and <> is to visually difference their content from the
environment, and in that regard both forms are totally equal, therefore
there are no logical reasons to prefer one over the other.

Additionally, standards should standardize common practice, instead of
imposing artificial restrictions, and from the above numbers it's clear
what the common practice is.  I.e. there must be a reason why people (who
haven't read the coding standards in the same way you seem to have) use []
instead of <>.  I can only speculate on those reasons, but _I_ personally
find [] more attractive (and I agree that this is not a logical reason,
but this doesn't make me prefer it less).

Given all the above facts I propose we accept [] for naming switch cases
(and even other things, as the author sees fit), _even_ if this means not
following GNU coding standards.  As I noticed above I think the standards
don't have language against this, but even if you disagree with that I
still propose the same, based on the fact of needing to standardize common
practice.

Additionally to all that I think we should not make such a big fuzz about
this.  It's just your evangelizing which made me write this message ;-)


Ciao,
Michael.