[webkit-dev] Should we ever change style guidelines?

[Adam Treat]

On Thursday 10 December 2009 02:35:38 pm Peter Kasting wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Adam Treat <treat at kde.org> wrote:
> > both are confusing and in my mind call for exercising reviewer
> > discretion over the style guide.
> >
> > And I *do not* think the
> > style guide is wrong for the *guide* to prefer "!foo" over "foo == 0"!
>
> OK.  Then I have no idea what your standards are.  Uses of !foo are
> confusing, but foo == 0 shouldn't be preferred, except when it should.
>  Whatever.

But I think I've been clear?! I think the style guideline for preferring 
'!foo' vs 'foo == 0' is a good one for the vast majority of cases.  And it 
also happens to be the current rule which is a bonus :)

However, I don't think it is a good rule to follow dogmatically.  And I 
believe I've given good examples of why.  You disagree?

If a person thinks the style guidelines should only consist of those rules 
where there are no possible exceptions, then I guess such a person would 
advocate against removing this guideline.  I however don't feel that they 
should be interpreted so dogmatically.

> In several dozen emails we have progressed no further.  Stalemates like
> this and feelings like "this is inexplicable" as above are precisely why I
> don't want reviewer judgement guiding style on patches that I or anyone
> else submits.

I guess the reverse is true for me.  Stalemates like this are a good example 
of why I do want good reviewer judgement to be used when evaluating the style 
as well as the rest of the code in a patch.

Cheers,
Adam