linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to 100 colums

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20120204130859.GB30198@elte.hu>
Date:	Sat, 4 Feb 2012 14:08:59 +0100
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@...nvz.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@...allels.com>,
	Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@...onical.com>,
	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Andrew Vagin <avagin@...nvz.org>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...il.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Glauber Costa <glommer@...allels.com>,
	Matt Helsley <matthltc@...ibm.com>,
	Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>,
	Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@...il.com>,
	Vasiliy Kulikov <segoon@...nwall.com>, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu
Subject: Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from
 80 to 100 colums


* Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Feb 2012 11:07:43 +0100
> Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu> wrote:
> 
> > [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to 100 colums
> > 
> > The overwhelming majority of kernel developers have stopped 
> > using 80 col terminals years ago.
> > 
> > As far as I'm aware I was the last regular kernel 
> > contributor who still used a standard VGA text console, but 
> > both text consoles and using them to read the kernel source 
> > code has become increasingly gruesome years ago so I 
> > switched to a wider terminal two years ago.
> 
> I always use 80-cols, everywhere.  Not because I particularly 
> like it - I find it a bit too small.  I use it because it is 
> the standard, and using it helps me see where and how badly we 
> violate the standard.
> 
> We've actually done pretty well - linewrap in 80 cols rarely 
> causes me problems.  It's sufficiently rare that when it 
> *does* happen, it really stands out.

Maybe it got better after the introduction of checkpatch - I 
stopped using 80col terminals because the situation *was* 
getting so bad and because i did not feel like fighting a 
thousand other kernel developers who had different preferences 
;-)

> IOW, the changelog is quite the exaggeration.

You are right about that.

> > So lets increase the limit to 100 cols
> 
> I think that's going too far - 96 will be enough and it's a 
> multiple of 8.
> 
> The multiple-of-8 thing seems pleasing but probably doesn't 
> matter much.  It means that things like
> 
> 
> if (foo) {
> 	if (foo) {
> 		if (foo) {
> 			if (foo) {
> 				if (foo) {
> 					if (foo) {
> 						if (foo) {
> 							if (foo) {
> 								if (foo) {
> 									if (foo) {
> 										if (foo) {
> 											if (foo) {
> 												if (foo) {
> 													if (foo) {
> 														if (foo) {
> 												
> 
> will line up properly.
> 
> If we really want to improve the world we should jump into a 
> time machine and set tabstops to 4.  Sigh.

I think that would be a distinctly bad decision - people could 
have crazy, 10 levels nesting in a function and be technically 
'compliant'.

8 col tabs _forces clean code_ more often than not. I know about 
very few functions in the kernel that legitimately need more 
than 3 or 4 levels of nesting.

And that is why I agree with the 6-tab based warning approach - 
then we can remove the 80col warning which is really making 
things actively worse.

Thanks,

	Ingo
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/