Re: [CLEANUP PATCH RESEND] git wrapper: Make while loop more reader-friendly

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jan 2, 2009, 18:49 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0901021947170.30769@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>
In-Reply-To: <200901021228.07599.bss@iguanasuicide.net>

Hi,

On Fri, 2 Jan 2009, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On Friday 2009 January 02 12:07:52 you wrote:
> > It is not a good practice to prefer performance over readability in
> > something as performance uncritical as finding the trailing slash
> > of argv[0].
> >
> > So avoid head-scratching by making the loop user-readable, and not
> > hyper-performance-optimized.
> 
> > -	do
> > -		--slash;
> > -	while (cmd <= slash && !is_dir_sep(*slash));
> > +	while (cmd <= slash && !is_dir_sep(*slash))
> > +		slash--;
> 
> What confused people?  The predecrement or the do/while?  Should people that 
> don't understand one of those be hacking on git?
> 
> That said, I'm not opposed to the patch.  It is easier on the eyes, though I 
> prefer the one-liner:
> for (; cmd <= slash && !is_dir_sep(*slash); --slash);

As I mentioned in the commit message: readability is something to be cherished and worshipped.

For your pleasure, I will not go into details about the motions my bowels went through when I looked at those three lines. Or your single line, for that matter.

Ciao, Dscho