Re: Mixing whitespace and topical changes

[Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc>]

On Wed, Apr 18 2007, Didier Verna wrote:

> Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> wrote:
>
>> - Synchronizing also happens between the trunk and v5-10 [...]
>
>>   The fact that doing mass whitespace change (and even mixing them
>>   with topical changes) makes syncing harder, already is a
>>   k.o. argument against switching to such a policy.
>>
>> - Unrelated whitespace changes make many CVS operations less useful
>>   (diff, annotate, ...). [...]
>
>         You're missing the point: you're arguing that mixing whitespace
> and topical changes together is a bad thing. Of course. What I'm arguing
> is that whitespace cleanness is a good thing, and that if all committers
> took care of it locally, the files would always be whitespace-clean, and
> would never see the problem again.[1]

The "problem" (files not being "whitespace clean") is minor.  Trying
to enforce it doesn't outweigh the disadvantages of the "cleaning up".

>> - As Gnus is part of Emacs we should follow the same policies whenever
>>   possible.
>>
>>   * It's consensus among Emacs developers _not_ to do mass whitespace
>>     removal without prior coordination.
>>
>>   * It's consensus among Emacs developers to use the Emacs defaults
>>     for editing Emacs files (e.g. fill-column, tab-width, coding
>>     style, ...).  `whitespace-cleanup' in `write-file-hooks' is not
>>     the default in Emacs.
>
>         Now, this part really upsets me :-( [...]. Gnus is an
> independant project, 

If Gnus wasn't a part of Emacs, we would not have to require a
copyright assignment for non-trivial contributions (you also signed
it, so you should be aware of it).

Lars even considers releases such as 5.10.* as "beta" and the version
included in Emacs as "final"...

,----[ http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/54341 ]
| From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
| Date: 2003-10-18 13:53:41 GMT
| 
| Derrell.Lipman <at> UnwiredUniverse.com writes:
| 
| > The README file in the gnus-5.10.2 obtained from the US mirror this evening
| > contains the statement, "This packages contains a *beta* version of Gnus."
| > (emphasis added).
| 
| Yes, that's true.  Gnus 5.10 is beta, Gnus 5.11 will be production
| code.  :-)
`----

,----[ README ]
| This package contains a beta version of Gnus (beta because the final version
| is the one included in Emacs). [...]
`----

> maintained in an independant CVS archive, 

With the syncing from and to Emacs started 2004, it's not really
independent anymore.  Lars explicitly agreed to this and gave Miles
write access to the Gnus repositories for this reason.

> by independant developpers.

> I don't give a sh*t about how the GNU Emacs guys do their job and I
> shouldn't have to. This is almost as hilarious as the "backend
> back-end back end or was it BackEnd" troll.

>> Didier, in the past few years, I've never seen any other Gnus
>> developer committing mixed changes except you.
>
>         Sure, I was the only one to properly whitespace-clean my files
> after editing.

For trailing whitespace, this is not true.

>> Beside yourself, nobody argued in favor of those "by-the-way
>> whitespace changes".
>
>         So what ? When I think the majority is wrong, I try to convince
> the majority. Wouldn't you ?

Note that this was a reply to...
>>> Note that I will accept whatever decision the majority adopts
... so I tried to point out that the majority (at least of those who
participated in the previous discussions) doesn't agree.

[ You may even replace Emacs developers with Gnus developers in the
  paragraph above that upset you. ]

>> If also Larsi has said "Don't use whitespace.el or equivalent when
>> changing Gnus." (as Katsumi mentioned), isn't this sufficient to
>> convince you?
>
>         No.
>
>> I agree that we should _not introduce_ trailing whitespace.
>
>         Oh, I see. Now we're talking. 

_Not introducing_ trailing whitespace is different to "cleanup"
leading spaces to tabs.

> And how do you propose to ensure that this is the case ?  I propose
> a whitespace-cleanup in write-file-hooks; that way you don't have to
> think about it. Does that ring a bell ?

If we'd agree that every Gnus developer should follows your proposal:
How do you propose to ensure this?

>> You are kind of arguing that we should change our policy because of a
>> bug/missing feature in `whitespace.el'.
>
>         Again, you're missing the point. My point is that files should
> *always* be whitespace-clean. whitespace.el is just a tool. I don't care
> about the tool.
>
>         OK, you made an illegitimate yet strong point. 

Making synchronization between v5-10 and the trunk as simple as
possible is illegitimate?

> I'm obviously not going to make the GNU Emacs guys change their way,
> and I don't want to make anybody's job harder, so I'll fix my
> setup. Congrats though. You've just ruined my day with that "Gnus is
> part of Emacs" bullshit. :-(

Well, if reminding you about facts upsets, I can't do much about it.
But I don't think to accuse me of writing bullshit is good style.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
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