Re: [Gnash-dev] Recent commit in devtools

[ann]

Hi Martin,

I was on vacation for a week and I'm just now catching up on my email.

As Sandro already stated, I'm working as a tech writer on this project, 
not as a C++ programmer.  Although I worked as a programmer for several
years, I have not written C++ in more than 6.  So it would probably be a
bad idea for me to make any code changes beyond the janitoral work I have
proposed.

The coding standards discussion came up when Rob was in the Netherlands and
was having difficulty with some oddly-formatted m4 files.  I suggested that
I could write some tests which would check the code for the style rules which
are already described in the Gnash manual.

Changing the legacy code would be a low priority task, to be done by me 
when I need variety, or by newcomers who don't feel ready to submit code 
patches but who want to get involved.  I'm basing this upon my observations 
of the Parrot project, where a group of people who aren't able to code on 
the main project still make themselves useful by performing smaller, less 
urgent tasks.

The main purpose of the tests would be to encourage people to make certain 
that new code adheres to the project's stated guidelines, instead of 
propagating the mishmash of styles which currently exist (mostly from the
inherited code).  The entire devtools/ directory won't be included in the 
distribution; these are only tools to aid in development.  For instance the
developer could run tests over newly written code, or they could be run as
CVS commit hooks.  Additional tools could be vim and emacs codas, and at 
some point automatic conversion.

I hope that this gives you a better idea of what I'm trying to do, and
why.  I'm not creating any coding standards, only trying to provide ways
to more easily adhere to the ones which already exist.  Nor am I suggesting
that anyone should drop her or his valuable work of adding functionality or
fixing bugs in order to convert legacy code.

- Ann