[boost] Re: Guidelines for library submissions

From: Beman Dawes (beman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-03-15 13:42:47

At 07:55 AM 3/15/00 +0000, xavier wrote:

>And why not letting everyone coding using its own style and then
>submitting the source code to some beautifying utility (like cb
under
>UNIX) to create the "release" version of the code?
>
>Personnaly, I let Xemacs doing all the indentation stuff for me and
it
>just look great.  I think it even look right the way you want.

That works for some people but not others.  Some programmers vary
their style according to the density of the code, and would not like
to see that modified.

Another problem with reformatting is that it can defeat the "diff"
and "patch" tools that are critical to the way some program
maintenance is done.

When people send diffs it is ever so much easier to review, approve,
and apply the patch.  Lots of free and open source software
maintainers will only take diffs.  That is one of the main reasons
boost doesn't currently modify source code from the various authors.

--Beman