minutes of ESC call ...

[Stephan Bergmann]

On 11/02/2017 06:10 PM, Michael Meeks wrote:
> * clang-format-ness (Miklos)
[...]
>      + propose merge step#1 without clang-format enforced (Michael)
>         + don’t like the auto-re-format of others’ commits (Stephan)
>            + if want to have enforced – make sure all commits is formatted right
>              or we get these issues.

To maybe clarify that a bit:  I see no value at all in enforcing any 
formatting as an end in itself.  I only see it as a means to drop the 
future amount of reformatting commits to zero.  (What I mean with 
"reformatting commits" is both commits that do no changes other than 
reformatting source code, as well as commits that mix---related, or even 
unrelated---reformatting of source code with some "real" changes. 
Either form creates "noise" that makes it harder to inspect individual 
git commits and the git history.)

The only way I see how we can reach that goal of zero future 
reformatting commits is to have the invariant that all commits to the 
central git repo are enforce-formatted (after one round of "big noise" 
reformatting any existing source code, if we ever get there). 
Therefore, I am not interested in experiments that cover some subset of 
the git repo's files but are done in a way that they don't guarantee 
that invariant over that subset.  My fear is that such experiments will 
increase the level of noise in the repo, instead of helping to keep it 
flat at its historical level.