RE: Post Commit Code Formatting

I'm just a lurker here for now, and only for a month, but almost every day on this list someone asks a question that was presented a week or two before. I can't speak for Karl, but it annoys the hell out of me. Karl's name is all over the dev mailing list and I presume him to be a heavy hitter for Subversion and, personally, I'd be honored to have him rip me apart some day. I've been trying to get under Larry Wall's skin for years ;)

That being said, is there a mailing list archive to search? I haven't had any specific questions (except for the one) about Subversion to post, but when I do I'll try to find a good answer first. At the risk of p'ing off users of this list, the original post did seem a little demanding, which is not the way to approach open source projects. I've seen this kind of thing before and I wonder if it may be a side-effect of folks from the consumer world coming over to the dark side. Or is it the light side? I don't even know any more.

So calk it up to whatever, but on a purely philosophical note, there is a reason that this kind of thing has been discussed in the past (for other tools) and shot down. Namely, it's a terrible idea. Altering code, especially unbeknownst to the author, once it has been submitted is not the MO of any source control tool I've ever seen, and I've used a lot of them. It doesn't matter that it's 'just formatting'. The job of a good source control tool is to keep impeccable records about the code that has been checked in, not a slightly altered version of it. I've worked in some regulated industries and if they (SEC, FDA) audit you (and the FDA does regularly) and found that you altered code using a script once it was checked in, you'd be shut down. Doesn't matter what or why.

If your engineers are not coding against your standards, they need to be taught to do so. I would urge you not to alter their code behind their backs. If they aren't *writing* in a certain style, then they won't be able to *read* it later. A better idea might be to have a mechanism to check the coding style and refuse the checkin if it is not up to snuff.

Flame away ...

-Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: Durfee, Bernard [mailto:Bernard.Durfee@suny.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 12:55 PM
To: users@subversion.tigris.org
Subject: RE: Post Commit Code Formatting

> Now, this shouldn't continue.
>
> Programmers are known to have very talented microchips,
> programming, machine and science knowledge. But when it comes
> to social contact, itīs something a little bit more
> complicated. Indeed the response as we all saw wasnīt polite.
> Karl was having a bad day, or you could even have pushed a
> button that made him become soo defensive (he could have
> tried to implement this earlier and had to stop because of
> the dificulty, maybe).
>
> Letīs no make this an issue. Better, letīs discuss if this
> would be interesting to Subversion as a product, not flame
> each others. Such a discussion could be promoted to the dev
> list also and make some permanent changes.
>
> As for me, I created a thread about this exact subject, and I
> have decided that I will be using the "second commit if
> necessary technique".

I absolutely agree.

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Received on Wed Jun 22 22:22:34 2005