Re: Fixing the warning about warning(""); was: Re: [PATCH] difftool.c: mark a file-local symbol with static

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jan 26, 2017, 14:49 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1701261547470.3469@virtualbox>
In-Reply-To: <20170126143906.j6j64v4cyatwvlik@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Hi Peff,

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017, Jeff King wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 12:16:10PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > We could switch the DEVELOPER option on by default, when gcc or clang
> > is used at least. Otherwise the DEVELOPER option (which I like very
> > much) would not be able to live up to its full potential.
> 
> I'm not sure that is a good idea. The options include -Werror, which is
> a good thing for developers to respect. But people using older versions
> of compilers, or on systems with slightly different header files, may
> see extraneous warnings. It's good to fix those warnings, but it is a
> big inconvenience to regular users who just want to build and use git.

Yeah, you cannot have the cake and eat it, too: on the one side, we want Git contributors to see problems early (preferably before even submitting the patch) and at the same time, we want users who compile their Git themselves to have no trouble doing so.

> You could split the DEVELOPER options into two groups, though, and only
> enable when (after verifying that it is indeed gcc/clang in use). But
> now who is coming up with complicated fixes for the warning("") issue?
> :)

That is yet another instance of the complicator's glove; I would rather avoid that.

To me, the obvious solution is to pay more attention to Continuous Integration, in particular on fixing problems right after they are reported.

Ciao, Johannes