Re: cleanups with long-term benefits (was Re: [PATCH] schemas: Add vim modeline)

[Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>]

Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com> writes:

> Am 03.08.2020 um 18:03 hat Markus Armbruster geschrieben:
>> Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
>> > This means the two parts might be considered separately:
>> >
>> > - replacing single-quote with double-quote strings
>> >
>> > - replacing # comments with //
>> 
>> If all we want is decent editor support out of the box, then rename to
>> .py, and drop the modelines.  No merge conflicts, no git-blame
>> pollution.
>> 
>> To make the .py files actual Python, additionally rename the bool
>> literals.  Much, much less churn than massaging all strings or all
>> comments.
>
> I guess I could get behind this one. File renames still have a cost, but
> it feels like it wouldn't be absurdly high at least.
>
> And that you actually occasionally paste schema parts into real Python
> code suggests that there would be even a small benefit in addition to
> the good syntax highlighting out of the box.
>
> I fully expect that we'd keep our existing parser instead of using an
> actual Python parser, because the existing code (a) exists and (b) is
> probably simpler than the resulting code.

Replacing the part of parser.py that deals with JSON by off-the-shelf
code is a non-goal for me.  I got better things to do than replacing[*]
a tiny parser that works by glue for another parser, moving QAPI
sideways instead of forward.

Any messing with the lower syntax layer in non-trivial ways needs to
bring benefits that make it worth our while.


[*] Includes reviewing patches.