Coding standards tabs -> spaces, need to redo the vote

[Scott Eade <se...@backstagetech.com.au>]

The way the voting works, a single -1 is enough to veto an idea and it is up
to the people who want the proposal to go ahead to lobby to have any -1
votes revoked. 

In the case of tabs vs spaces, there were a number of -1's, and after
viewing cvs in my browser I would (unofficially in this message) change my
+0 to a -1 (8 spaces are used - yuck).

So if the formal decision is that spaces are to be used the question arises,
how do we go about converting the existing code?  Do we:

a. Just use spaces for new code (yuck)
b. Convert files as other changes are committed (not so great as it makes it
difficult to see exactly what real changes have been introduced)
c. Convert all source files in one go

I'm thinking that option c is the only practical answer.  What do you think?
Want to volunteer?

BTW: It is unclear if this decision has actually been made yet.  It is
feasible I guess that Mike could be -1 on switching to spaces - this would
reverse the roles and put the burden on the existing -1 voters to convince
Mike that spaces are the way to go rather than vice versa.  Care to comment
Mike? 

A vote needs to have a final conclusion, and I don't think the coding
standards vote had one.  I think we should redo the voting thus:

1. Switch from tabs to spaces for indentation.

2. Adopt Sun's coding standards
(http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConvTOC.doc.html)

3. Adopt the additional coding standards from the Turbine projects
(http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/common/code-standards.html) (only vote +1
for this if you are also voting +1 for spaces)

Does anyone have any changes to the above before the voting is redone?

Cheers,

Scott
-- 
Scott Eade
Backstage Technologies Pty. Ltd.
http://www.backstagetech.com.au
.Mac Chat/AIM: seade at mac dot com


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Re: Coding standards tabs -> spaces, need to redo the vote

[Oliver Rossmueller <ol...@tuxerra.com>]

Scott Eade wrote:
[snip]
> 
> So if the formal decision is that spaces are to be used the question arises,
> how do we go about converting the existing code?  Do we:
> 
> a. Just use spaces for new code (yuck)
> b. Convert files as other changes are committed (not so great as it makes it
> difficult to see exactly what real changes have been introduced)

One way to get this work is to reformat the file you have to change and 
to commit with a comment like "just reformatting". After that apply your 
  changes and commit again. Requires some discipline but I think it is 
possible.

> c. Convert all source files in one go
> 
> I'm thinking that option c is the only practical answer.  What do you think?
> Want to volunteer?

I have to touch a lot of files while doing my refactorings, so I could 
do the reformatting at least for these files when merging my changes 
with the main branch. To reformat the rest of the sources is not too 
much additional work, so I would do it as soon as I'm finished with my 
changes.

[snip]


Oliver