[Gluster-devel] Coding style and checkpatch.pl

[Harshavardhana]

> are objectively less error-prone than alternatives.  "Brace around
> single statement" would have been the perfect example, except that I
> already fixed it with http://review.gluster.org/#/c/8813/.  Thus,
> developers could be faced with page after page of style errors because
> they *copied the style of surrounding code*.  Also, these errors could

checkpatch.pl is not really a tool to use for proof of correctness, it
is a sort of
enforcing to make coding consistent - what exists today in the codebase
is due to the factor that we never had a conformant guideline and even if it did
it wasn't enforced.  In-fact we choose to be *Linux* style without
having a guideline
for much of GlusterFS history but at the same time on many occasions we weren't
conformant and i don't know of any hard standard which was followed
too for the last
8 years that i have been - it was largely word of mouth or a good practice.

So choosing 'checkpatch.pl' from *Linux* is a valid tool, now if few
things don't
work for us then fix checkpatch.pl - it isn't a irrefutable file :-).

The reason to have that in codebase is as the project gets bigger
which is the case
of GlusterFS it is better to have conformance with some guidelines.

- New changes coming in should adhere to that.
- Old changes if they are there and let them be.
- If modified and checkpatch complains then fix it.

Rejection happens way before you could even submit a patch, its sole reason is
to not waste everyone's time giving "-1" for "no tabs, no whitespace,
no this style"

If its too much of a hassle then get rid of it, as i said nothing is
irrefutable.

-- 
Religious confuse piety with mere ritual, the virtuous confuse
regulation with outcomes