[webkit-dev] Proposing style guide change regarding braces on conditional arms

[Dirk Pranke]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Adam Treat <treat at kde.org> wrote:
> On Friday 04 December 2009 04:22:57 pm Dirk Pranke wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Adam Treat <treat at kde.org> wrote:
>> > I don't think we should be changing the style guide for anything besides
>> > clarifications of currently unwritten rules.  No matter how the fashion
>> > may change or how developers may change.  Changing the rules throws
>> > consistency out the window which is, I believe, the greatest benefit of
>> > having a style guide.
>>
>> While I agree with your points re: subjectivity, and I agree that any
>> two competent programmers can disagree on any
>> points, it is also true that some practices can be shown to be more
>> reliable, maintainable, or readable, and those
>> practices do change over time, partially as technology changes and
>> partially because this is a social process.
>
> You can't show that any practice is more readable than another because it is
> subjective as you admit.  People can argue over the readability of different
> style options and come to different conclusions much as has been done in this
> long thread.

Not necessarily so; it depends on your definitions. If you define
"more readable" as "more readable to me", then
you are correct. If you define it as "a majority of the population
finds it more readable", then you can show this,
by a simple poll. I was using the latter definition. In addition,
people change their minds over time; I used to prefer:

if (x)
{
  foo():
}

over K&R, but I have gradually switched sides over the years ...

> As for technology changing, what do you think drives this particular style
> change other than the subjective opinions of a set of developers?

I don't believe this particular style change is being driven by a
technology change. I was
making a general counterargument to your general argument.

>> Dunno if this changes any of your thinking or not ...
>
> Sorry, not really.

No worries :)

-- Dirk