Re: CodingGuidelines Perl amendment

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 6, 2013, 16:29 UTC
Message-ID: <7vvca5mmmt.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <871ucto4vj.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com>

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

>  - As in C (see above), we avoid using braces unnecessarily (but Perl
>    forces braces around if/unless/else/foreach blocks, so this is not
>    always possible).

Is it ever (as opposed to "not always") possible to omit braces?

It sounds as if we encourage the use of statement modifiers, which certainly is not what I want to see.

You probably would want to mention that opening braces for "if/else/elsif" do not sit on their own line, and closing braces for them will be followed the next "else/elseif" on the same line instead, but that is part of "most of the C guidelines above apply" so it may be redundant.

>  - Don't abuse statement modifiers (unless $youmust).

It does not make a useful guidance to leave $youmust part unspecified.

Incidentally, your sentence is a good example of where use of statement modifiers is appropriate: $youmust is rarely true.

In general:

	... do something ...
	do_this() unless (condition);
        ... do something else ...

is easier to follow the flow of the logic than

	... do something ...
	unless (condition) {
		do_this();
	}
        ... do something else ...

*only* when condition is extremely rare, iow, when do_this() is expected to be almost always called.