Re: Clang-format configuration discussion - pt 2

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 5, 2023 at 2:07 PM Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 05.12.2023 14:46, Luca Fancellu wrote:
> > In my opinion, I don’t know of any tool that can address all the 
> > flexibility the Xen codestyle allows, yet the use of automatic
> > checkers would improve the review time, allow more new contributors to 
> > approach the community without being put down by
> > the amount of code-style comments,
>
> Since this argument is being repeated: I find it odd. No-one needs to even
> fear any amount of style comments if they simply follow the written down
> policy plus a tiny bit of common sense. According to my observation, (some)
> newcomers don't even care to look at what is being said about our style.
> It's not like you and I haven't been through this. When I started working
> with GNU toolchain, I had to adopt to their style. When I later started to
> work with Linux, I had to also adopt there. And then for Xen. And all of
> that already past closed source projects I had been working on before.

Most modern languages, including golang (and I think rust) have
built-in style correctors (`go fmt` is go's official one).  If you
haven't worked with an automatic style checker / fixer, you don't know
how much time, hassle, and emotional energy you're saving.  I don't
think I know anyone who, after using one, wants to go back to not
using one any more.

In general, I'm in favor of making changes to our style such that we
can make clang's style checker official.  The only reason I would vote
against it is if one of the style requirements was really intolerable;
but I find that pretty unlikely.

And as I've said before, the main reservation I have going forward
with this discussion is that I can't see clearly what it is that I'm
agreeing to.

 -George