Re: Using coccinelle for (quick?) syntax fixing

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:19:28 +0200
    From:        Jean-Yves Migeon <jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <e2568087e60b3c2943d03413cd7e5069@localhost>

I agree with pooka, no code changes to existing code just to make the
code look better.

  | However, I would prefer to have code using roundup/MIN/MAX rather than
  | rewriting them down. It tends to be harder to read, no matter the
  | developer's expertise can be.

If you're developing new code, or even making changes to existing code
for some other reason, then fine - but changing the code just because you
can't think of anything else to do, is not useful, however much you would
prefer it if the code had been written in a different style.

  | Does code quality, DRY, or KNF fit in?

No.   If the code is there, and works as it is supposed to, then leave it
alone.   If it needs changing for some reason (adding features, removing
old stuff that is no longer wanted, fixing bugs, improving performance, ...)
then change it as needed.  Otherwise, leave it alone.

  | I hardly see how the thing can go wrong in this /very/
  | simple case though: dependency on cdefs, exact semantic match.

One obvious example is that it makes it much harder in the future to pullups of
fixes to code in this area to earlier NetBSD versions - the diffs show all
of this meaningless churn as well as the real change.   The same for anyone
looking to see why something that used to work no longer does - you might be 
sure that your changes cannot possibly do any harm, but all someone else
sees is a whole bunch of files changed between the version that worked last 
week, and the new version that doesn't work this week, that they're going
to have to filter through to figure out what change actually broke things,
even if your change was not responsible (and it probably wouldn't be) you've
caused lots of needless unnecessary work.

Please don't.

kre

ps: this has nothing whatever to do with the tool you're using to assist,
whether this is done by hand, or automated, makes no real difference.