PRO from me, for all the reasons mentioned by legoktm On 12 February 2016 at 19:26, Legoktm <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi, > > On 02/12/2016 07:27 AM, Daniel Kinzler wrote: > > Now that we target PHP 5.5, some people are itching to make use of some > new > > language features, like the new array syntax, e.g. > > <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/269745/>. > > > > Mass changes like this, or similar changes relating to coding style, > tend to > > lead to controversy. I want to make sure we have a discussion about this > here, > > to avoid having the argument over and over on any such patch. > > > > Please give a quick PRO or CON response as a basis for discussion. > > > > In essence, the discussion boils down to two conflicting positions: > > > > PRO: do mass migration to the new syntax, style, or whatever, as soon as > > possible. This way, the codebase is in a consistent form, and that form > is the > > one we agreed is the best for readability. Doing changes like this is > > gratifying, because it's low hanging fruit: it's easy to do, and has > large > > visible impact (well ok, visible in the source). > > I'll offer an alternative, which is to convert all of them at once using > PHPCS and then enforce that all new patches use [] arrays. You then only > have one commit which changes everything, not hundreds you have to go > through while git blaming or looking in git log. > > > CON: don't do mass migration to new syntax, only start using new styles > and > > features when touching the respective bit of code anyway. The argument > is here > > that touching many lines of code, even if it's just for whitespace > changes, > > causes merge conflicts when doing backports and when rebasing patches. > E.g. if > > we touch half the files in the codebase to change to the new array > syntax, who > > is going to manually rebase the couple of hundred patches we have open? > > There's no need to do it manually. Just tell people to run the phpcs > autofixer before they rebase, and the result should be identical to > what's already there. And we can have PHPCS run in the other direction > for backports ([] -> array()). > > But if we don't do that, people are going to start converting things > manually whenever they work on the code, and you'll still end up with > hundreds of open patches needing rebase, except it can't be done > automatically anymore. > > > My personal vote is CON. No rebase hell please! Changing to the syntax > doesn't > > buy us anything. > > Consistency buys us a lot. New developers won't be confused on whether > to use [] or array(). It makes entry easier for people coming from other > languages where [] is used for lists. > > I think you're going to end up in rebase hell regardless, so we should > rip off the bandaid quickly and get it over with, and use the automated > tools we have to our advantage. > > So, if we're voting, I'm PRO. > > -- Legoktm > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
