On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:36 AM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net wrote:
There are philosophical differences as well. Peter and Stefan want to remove #defines and use magic values directly. I heavily disagree with that and believe the code is more readable if the meaning of a constant is visible in the code without having to consult data sheets. I hope that branching is a way to avoid revert wars or NACKs for design reasons.
one of the bad states an open source project can get into is what we might call "gilding the lily". In this case it is not "dining philosophers", it is "coding philosophers". The project is fine, but there is this persistent urge to tweak here and there and make it perfect. But, of course, nobody can ever agree on what constitutes perfection. I am tending, nowadays, to like Plan 9 coding styles, which are at variance with the coding styles of Linux and, hence, coreboot. I'm not about to try and change that area, however :-)
There are all sorts of these types of design points that smart people can disagree on. In many cases, both sides can be right, and have good reasons. I think we want to be very careful not to take the disagreements too far. We could end up damaging the project.
Constants visible in the code: if a constant is only ever used once, it is hard to see the harm. If a constant is used more than once, there is the possibility of a typo and confusion. We should keep those factors in mind.
Just my $.02, which is now about .01 euro.
ron