Re: Allows minimum-length to work for end-of-line spanners. (issue 7453046)

[dak]

On 2013/04/02 22:34:53, janek wrote:
> I'll risk joining the discussion.

> I see valid points from both of you.  I agree that it's better to fix
a broken
> design than to patch it with red tape.

It isn't patched.  minimum-length is used in multiple
contexts/interfaces, and Mike's patch muddies the situation further.

> However, if we only accepted code changes that were implementing the
> Ultimate Solution, i'm afraid that the development process would
> grind to a halt - Ultimate Solutions are obvioulsly best, but they
> take much much more time to implement, and usually only experts can
> write them.

That's the ultimate excuse to never bother about doing things right.

> This should not be an excuse for broken code, but i think that we
> can accept patches that are iterations towards Ultimate Solution.

This one is an iteration away from a proper solution since it
increases the inconsistency of minimum-length.

> As i see it, Mike's patch doesn't make matters worse - it's just a
> piece of duct tape to make a temporary solution (i.e. current messy
> code) less broken.

No, it makes it _more_ broken in order to paper over an annoying
consequence of the brokenness.

> I think that we could add a FIXME to it and accept it, because it's
> not making future rewrite harder (at least it seems so to me).

How does an increase in the inconsistency of minimum-length _not_ make
a future rewrite harder?

> Also, we're trying to make a stable release soon, so this is not a
> good time to start rewriting big pieces of code.

It is not a good time shoving in behavior that is not going to survive
into the next stable release (assuming that this _is_ going to be
fixed in a sensible manner) either.  The behavior of our stable
releases should not be erratic but rather increasingly reliable.


https://codereview.appspot.com/7453046/