Back to the issue... (was RE: Squeak coding style...)

goran.krampe at bluefish.se goran.krampe at bluefish.se
Thu Mar 4 09:08:24 UTC 2004


Hi all!

"Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Goran,
> 
> > If not - then it truly disappoints me, I really thought this community
> > was... capable of constructive cooperation instead of petty "No, I don't
> > like this or that!" or "Forget it, no point..."
> 
> As always, these issues need to be ultimately decided between the people
> actually doing the work. If you ask on a list with a thousand people
> subscribed you will get a thousand answers. And the people actually doing
> the work, will just say "forget it no point" as they are busy getting actual
> work done.

Yes, in general that is true. But we are trying to form a decision
process in general in this community and I am a Guide - in short I want
to be able to have the community decide things together. Don't we all?
Isn't that one of my duties as a Guide?

If the answer to everything is "Don't bother with the community, just
code and do things in private" - then there IS no community.

> And yes, it really pisses me off that I have to write this meta-reply to the
> list, if you would have sent that message to me just asking "hey, can't you
> fix B3D to follow these rough guidelines" I would've done it no questions
> asked.

Sorry, but I can't email privately to every one of the standard package
maintainers.
And besides - no, I truly doubt you would have done it "no questions
asked". And nor would the other maintainers have done either. I am no
God here that can just tell people what to do - and besides I don't
*know* what rough guidelines are best - that was why I brought it up in
the first place!

So to back up a bit - I am *SIMPLY* saying exactly *THIS*:

- Perhaps it would benefit the quality of the standard packages if they
follow a few, good, small, simple, perhaps even automatically enforcable
coding conventions, do you all agree? (not saying anything about how
many conventions we are talking about or what they are - just asking
"Should we have them?")

- Ok, if you do agree with that, what do you think might be a few, good,
small, simple, perhaps even automatically enforcable coding conventions?

And with enforcable I was talking about things that we either can:

- Automatically detect and then decide how to handle, like for example
missing class comments.
- Automatically transform, like for example the blank line after the
optional method comment and before the code. And note again, I am not
talking about the pretty printer - I personally want to read the code
*as it was written* because I don't think a pretty printer will be able
to format blocks etc in a good way.

I did write in a reply to Colin I think it was, that I dropped this
issue - because it felt so hopeless. Now here I am again trying to make
myself clear. I don't know what that means. ;)

And also regarding code comments and documentation:

Le me just say that "tomorrow" never arrives. Developers who say "Yeah,
that code is a bit sloppy - but I will write the comments when it is
finished tomorrow." are simply self delusional. There is no tomorrow.
Tomorrow you are sitting hacking on some other code that is fun and
cool. And the rest of us are trying to understand the code you wrote
yesterday.

Good comments should be written when the code is written IMHO. I surely
don't live perfectly by that rule, but I don't deny that it is so.

> But now we're sitting here in these meta-cyclic completely
> nonsensical discussion where everyone (including you) knows that absolutely
> nothing substantial will come out of it ;-(

No, that is not true. I hope. One thing has already come out of it - see
Ken's announcement on the list yesterday.

> Just because the people
> expressing their opinions will be largely disjunct from the people doing the
> work.

Sure, that is a risk of course. But still - this is an open project. :)

> Dropping out now. If you want me to fix up something in B3D just ask.

Hehe, *that* was a smistake. :) How about:

- Removing the extra spurious release you have on SM with the exact same
download file AFAICT. Must be a mistake.
- Writing the 70 missing class comments in B3D? ;) Or actually, the 52
in Balloon would be better to start with. :)


> Cheers,
>   - Andreas

Cheers, Göran

PS. Happy again, sorry for getting a bit grumpy in the previous
postings.



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