Constant naming convention

Kevin Bullock kbullock+mercurial at ringworld.org
Mon Jan 2 22:27:53 UTC 2017


A few overall notes on this thread, and then some specific clarifications below:

First, it is not the current project policy to defer any decisions until October 2017. It is also true that none of the core team is advocating radical changes to the way we develop Mercurial, either before or after that date.

Second, this topic is a matter of project policy, so we should take it up as the steering committee if we want to take any further action on it.

> On Dec 28, 2016, at 10:17, Pierre-Yves David <pierre-yves.david at ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> 
> On 12/15/2016 11:38 PM, Augie Fackler wrote:
>> (I’m trying to be brief here - hopefully it doesn’t come across as upset, because I’m not - mostly I was blindsided by a policy claim that I don’t remember.)
>> 
>>> On Dec 15, 2016, at 3:40 PM, Pierre-Yves David <pierre-yves.david at ens-lyon.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> So, to sum up, my stance is "Let us not revisit decision made by Matt for a while". Of course they might be case were we could make an exception if it is really worth it. Code style does not seems to be high profile enough for that (and is a lot of work to adjust).
>> 
>> In broad strokes, I agree that we should make an effort to not cause a wave of sea change. My perception of this particular issue is that:
>> 
>> 1) The codebase is already somewhat inconsistent (despite the efforts of mpm and others) when it comes to constant naming
> 
> My perception (and apparently Kevin's too) is that the codebase is currently consistent¹. A very quick check of the current code seems to confirm it is consistent (but that was a quick check). So, I think you need to back this statement with stronger fact than just your perception.

No, I said there is a _prevailing_ style, not that we have consistency. Augie was not the only one to draw the conclusion that we're not consistent today. There are sufficient exceptions to question the strength of the rule. Thank you for digging up the applicable section in CodingStyle, though. It seems the convention is written down after all.

>> I’ve seen some people say they’re fine with such a new policy, and many contributors (including me when I’m on autopilot, despite a decade of history with this codebase) are doing it by default, which was the thing that really pushed me toward making this proposal.
>> 
>> I’m fine to explicitly defer this (until the next sprint perhaps? Would that be far enough in the future?), if that’s what the broader community (rather than just one person) would like. I’m also fine to hear the proposal rejected on its merits (rather than a “we’re not changing things now” policy),
> 
> [extracted the last bit on it own line to clarify what I'm replying to]
> 
> > but I haven’t heard any objections to the actual proposal, only the timing.
> 
> That part is confusing to me, two emails ago, on this thread, Kevin voted -0 on the proposal. (You are replying to my reply to that Kevin's email.)

Negative zero can be confusing (cf. IEEE 754), so let me make it explicit: I have no objection to changing the convention, but I won't advocate for the change either because of the churn it may create.

pacem in terris / мир / शान्ति / ‎‫سَلاَم‬ / 平和
Kevin R. Bullock



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