Re: [RFC PATCH 1/9] rebase -i: only write fixup-message when it's needed

>
> Charvi Mendiratta <charvi077@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Okay, I looked into the write_message(...) and agree that it does not return
> > a positive value and only returns non-zero for error case and zero for
> > success. So, for this patch maybe we can ignore checking '< 0' here and
> > later add another patch to make this function follow the convention of
> > "negative is error".
>
> Please don't.  There is a higher cognitive cost to readers when you write
>
>         if (write_message(...)) {
>
> The reader is forced to look at its implementation to see if it
> returns positive in a non-error situation.
>
> If you write it like so from the beginning
>
>         if (write_message(...) < 0) {
>
> the reader can trust that the code follows "negative is an error"
> convention.  One fewer thing readers have to worry about.