Paul Cochrane wrote:
Having editor hints in the source can have value as it can reduce the
cage cleaning load by getting the editor to indent people's code
consistently (admittedly this only helps people who use emacs and vim
in this case) so in that sense it is worthwhile having them around.
The coda is added to all C-language files; the problem is only with
Perl-language files with __END__ and __DATA__ blocks.
The editor hints aren't actually very helpful, but they do add clutter
to every source file, and a maintenance burden. Both vim and emacs allow
top-level settings of these preferences, which is a more appropriate
place for them.
The coding standards tests need to check the format of the source code
files directly anyway (for developers who don't use vim or emacs).
Why don't we
just let them be an exception which doesn't require such editor hints?
It's best to be consistent. If every file has the hints, people rely on
them. If none of them do, people know they have to define top-level
preferences. Anything in between is messy.
Allison
