Re: GOP2-4 - C++ and scheme indentation

[Graham Percival]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 12:21:06PM +0200, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote:
> Graham Percival writes:
> 
> > New contributors sometimes struggle to follow our indentation and
> > code style
> 
> Yes, that's bad.  Do we explain that we're a GNU project and as
> such use GNU coding style?  Together with a pointer to the info
> node *(standards)Formatting, that could help.

Given that I don't think that we follow GNU style exactly, I don't
think that's relevant.

> > – this is especially difficult when parts of our
> > existing source code doesn’t have a consistent style.
> 
> Yes, and even more so if we don't explain what the style is?
> 
> What could help, though, is to just accept small patches that have
> formatting problems, run C-x h C-M-\ , tell them thank you and show
> them the reformatted diff from C-x v = ?

You didn't read carefully enough:
>> Emacs is not an answer; nobody wants to install 50 megabytes
>> just to format scheme code. Especially when a standalone tool
>> could do the job in probably less than 10 Kb.

I do not have emacs installed.  I *WILL NOT* have Emacs installed.
Carl has gone on record as saying that he will not use Emacs.
IIRC Reinhold has also gone on record.  We could conduct a poll if
you want to see other people who do not, and *WILL NOT*, install
emacs just to format scheme code.

Do you want to tell me (and them) that we shouldn't be editing
.scm files in lilypond?

> This is where Rietveld, git-cl, policy and possibly the benevolent
> dictator comes in?

Sure, we could do it on an an-hoc basis.  Although that hasn't
been working for the past few years.  Or, just a wild thought, we
could finish writing the 10 kb .scm file which will take care of
this for us.

I repeat: formatting source code is a computationally solved
problem.  It is a complete waste of our incredible human
creativity and intelligence to format stuff manually.

I really don't see the objection.  Scheme is pretty easy to
indent.  We almost have a working scheme file which indents
scheme.  This will completely elminate one of the known stumbling
blocks facing new contributors.  What's not to love?

- Graham