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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-commits] repo/gentoo:master commit in: eclass/
From:       Gregory Woodbury <redwolfe () gmail ! com>
Date:       2015-10-31 15:05:47
Message-ID: CAJoOjx9D7TseAEMsvArXYFvYHeGFm1xfYpLxnfEuzGBGqRfKLA () mail ! gmail ! com
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Grammar and style police are everywhere!
This week are they shooting themselves in the foot over some totally
trivial and meaningless extra characters somewhere on a line?
Is it a case of "#TriviaDoesntMatter"?

AFAICT the limitations on line lengths are are ANCIENT holdovers
from days of fixed lenght cards and glass-teletypes. Totally meaningless
in today's terminal emulator in GUIs world.

It is certainly laudable to keep text block widths reasonable. It is fact that
it is easier to read text at 6 or 7 inches wide versus more than 8 inches.
BUT, it is also clear that a *consistent* style is easier to read instead of
needlessly varying styles in one document.

As for "being hesitant to touch anything anymore"...
Practically all of the FOSS projects have adopted rather stringent and
ridiculuous requirements that programmers and other have to jump
through hoops (of flame?) to prove their qualifications to do anything.
Gentoo is maybe one of the more conservative about having to go
through the motions in oder to qualify as a "developer" and, personally,
I no longer have the time or inclination (at my age of 62) to do so, just so
that my 50+ years of programming and typing can be subject to the
arbitrary rules.  I don't expect to be granted free access to the
code base without some oversight, but a code review by one or
more others before a commit would/should be more than adequate
to exclude bugs and blunders from being introduced.

Over the years I have done much for the FOSS movement, and I
have posted some small tools and scripts that some may find usefull, and
where possible I contribute via bugzilla. I much prefer Gentoo as a platform
since it is still committed to allowing the users to make significant
choices about the environment instead of imposing "one way" policies
as some other projects have done.

But seeing this little tempest merely convinces me that some folks
still don't get the point that some things of a substative nature
(such as correctness and choice) are of more importance than
other things (like "style" or options.)  Also, avoiding idiosyncratic
changes that have unforseen or un-intended consequences should
be coordinated with others before introduction to a stable system.

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury
redwolfe@gmail.com

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