--- Rahul Akolkar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/13/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > Author: mbenson > > Date: Mon Aug 13 17:06:29 2007 > > New Revision: 565581 > > > > URL: > http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?view=rev&rev=565581 > > Log: > > format > > > <snip/> > > Thanks for looking at [el], it was about time > someone stepped up :-) > > I feel some of the purely stylistic changes (such as > this commit) > should be avoided, as far as possible. Bit more here > [1]. > > -Rahul
Rahul, I haven't forgotten your earlier objections of this nature; I have tried to compromise by only modifying those files in which it is my intent to make further changes. I hope you will see this as at least somewhat comforting in that "inconsequential" changes will only be made in the context of "meaningful" ones. Further, I have attempted to granularize these to ease the task of discerning the meaningful changes among the superficial. The particular case in question is a preliminary reformatting, though the case you cited wrt [jxpath] involved actual functional code. WRT formatting: further research on my part has discovered the note on c.a.o./patches.html to the effect that each component has its own coding conventions, which should be respected. But to examine this further, what are coding conventions but the artifact of an agreement between the committers to a codebase? When the original committers desert and new ones must step up, why must this burden be augmented by that of being constrained to work within some extraordinary set of formatting rules? IMHO Commons should have an "encouraged" set of formatting standards; individual components using some other format should consider providing one or more resources to assist contributors in compliance. Finally, when reviving an unmaintained component, given consensus between the involved parties, it should be permissible to convert the codebase to an agreeable set of formatting rules (hopefully the encouraged Commons standard, but theoretically something else). In both the formatting and functional cases, it is my personal situation that glaring inefficiencies (unfortunately including gratuitous keystrokes) distract my ability to focus on the important points of a given task. Most likely this is a mild psychological illness of some sort, but some developers are known to express the opinion that constant refactoring is an intrinsic part of (good) development. I do agree that if a number of developers are working on a codebase and certain changes are made back and forth based on the whimsy of particular members of the team, that's a waste of everyone's time. But I think such cases can and should be democratically settled as individual stylistic concerns (e.g. ternary operator vs. if-else). I hope we can conclude this with some universally acceptable solution, though I admit it may well take a wiser head than mine to resolve our seemingly incompatible stances on the issue. :) br, Matt > > [1] http://tinyurl.com/2tgo2d > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
