From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755940AbcIVMq4 (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:46:56 -0400 Received: from mx2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:54367 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752263AbcIVMqy (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:46:54 -0400 Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:46:48 +0200 From: Jean Delvare To: Jani Nikula Cc: Joe Perches , Julia Lawall , Al Viro , Ilya Dryomov , Andy Whitcroft , Linus Torvalds , Jonathan Corbet , Ceph Development , Alex Elder , Sage Weil , LKML , kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , linux-doc@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: "CodingStyle: Clarify and complete chapter 7" in docs-next Message-ID: <20160922144648.10efc7ac@endymion> In-Reply-To: <8760pop63l.fsf@intel.com> References: <20160920001159.GM2356@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <1474339566.1954.25.camel@perches.com> <1474353123.1954.28.camel@perches.com> <20160922112407.47da9393@endymion> <8760pop63l.fsf@intel.com> Organization: SUSE Linux X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.12.0 (GTK+ 2.24.30; x86_64-suse-linux-gnu) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi Jani, On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:43:42 +0300, Jani Nikula wrote: > On Thu, 22 Sep 2016, Jean Delvare wrote: > > You need to think in terms of actual use cases. Who uses checkpatch and > > why? I think there are 3 groups of users: > > * Beginners. They won't run the script by themselves, instead they will > > submit a patch which infringes a lot of coding style rules, and the > > maintainer will point them to checkpatch and ask for a resubmission > > which makes checkpatch happy. Being beginners, they can only rely on > > the script itself to only report things which need to be fixed, by > > default. > > * Experienced developers. Who simply want to make sure they did not > > overlook anything before they post their work for review. They have > > the knowledge to decide if they want to ignore some of the warnings. > > * People with too much spare time, looking for anything they could > > "contribute" to the kernel. They will use --subjective and piss off > > every maintainer they can find. > > > > Sadly there's not much we can do about the third category, short of > > killing option --subjective altogether. > > You could make checkpatch have different defaults for patches and files, > to encourage better style in new code, but to discourage finding > problems in existing code. Fixing old code isn't wrong per se. It's good actually. But only if done the right way by the right person. I don't think it makes any sense to use this task as an introduction to kernel development for newcomers. It doesn't teach them anything about the kernel, really. -- Jean Delvare SUSE L3 Support From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jean Delvare Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:46:48 +0000 Subject: Re: "CodingStyle: Clarify and complete chapter 7" in docs-next Message-Id: <20160922144648.10efc7ac@endymion> List-Id: References: <20160920001159.GM2356@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <1474339566.1954.25.camel@perches.com> <1474353123.1954.28.camel@perches.com> <20160922112407.47da9393@endymion> <8760pop63l.fsf@intel.com> In-Reply-To: <8760pop63l.fsf@intel.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Jani Nikula Cc: Joe Perches , Julia Lawall , Al Viro , Ilya Dryomov , Andy Whitcroft , Linus Torvalds , Jonathan Corbet , Ceph Development , Alex Elder , Sage Weil , LKML , kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , linux-doc@vger.kernel.org Hi Jani, On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:43:42 +0300, Jani Nikula wrote: > On Thu, 22 Sep 2016, Jean Delvare wrote: > > You need to think in terms of actual use cases. Who uses checkpatch and > > why? I think there are 3 groups of users: > > * Beginners. They won't run the script by themselves, instead they will > > submit a patch which infringes a lot of coding style rules, and the > > maintainer will point them to checkpatch and ask for a resubmission > > which makes checkpatch happy. Being beginners, they can only rely on > > the script itself to only report things which need to be fixed, by > > default. > > * Experienced developers. Who simply want to make sure they did not > > overlook anything before they post their work for review. They have > > the knowledge to decide if they want to ignore some of the warnings. > > * People with too much spare time, looking for anything they could > > "contribute" to the kernel. They will use --subjective and piss off > > every maintainer they can find. > > > > Sadly there's not much we can do about the third category, short of > > killing option --subjective altogether. > > You could make checkpatch have different defaults for patches and files, > to encourage better style in new code, but to discourage finding > problems in existing code. Fixing old code isn't wrong per se. It's good actually. But only if done the right way by the right person. I don't think it makes any sense to use this task as an introduction to kernel development for newcomers. It doesn't teach them anything about the kernel, really. -- Jean Delvare SUSE L3 Support