docs/71826: [PATCH] Whitespace cleanup

Simon L. Nielsen simon at FreeBSD.org
Tue Sep 21 18:11:17 UTC 2004


On 2004.09.21 13:54:51 -0400, Tom Rhodes wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:48:47 +0100
> Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote:
> 
> > When I said "I don't recall the discussion", that's exactly what I
> > meant.  Not "I don't believe such a discussion took place", or "I don't
> > believe that this was the consensus reached".  Just "I don't remember".
> > 
> > Since at least two people *do* remember the discussion, there's no need
> > to rehash it for my benefit - I'll read the archives if I decide to
> > care.
> 
> Heh, I don't recall seeing any accusations about the ability of
> your memory; I just wanted to raise my hand about "whitespace
> changes being useless" which I feel that sometimes it's very
> useful.
> 
> Every open a file in vi(1), not in an xterm, and have sentences
> which break in the middle of a word onto another line?  Ever
> arrow around the file jumping paragraphs at a time?  That is
> an extreme annoyance.  :)

Since this is being discussed anyway... I think whitespace changes
should be done if the whitespace gets in the way, that is, if the
"broken" whitespace in a file, in any way, get in the way of real work
I see no problem in fixing the whitespace, before or after doing
actual changes (or when planning to change something).

I still think whitespace changes should not be done just for the heck
of it, but I have no reason to think this is actually a problem.  I
have faith that my fellow committers know when it's OK, and when it's
just a waste of disk-space/bandwidth, since I have yet to see somebody
actually committing useless whitespace fixes.

And that was all I have to say on the topic, so please go back to your
regular scheduled bikeshed^Wshow ;-).

-- 
Simon L. Nielsen
FreeBSD Documentation Team
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