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

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 15, 2021, 17:22 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbldqt8rm.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAPSFM5eBCVD9sx-AkA6Zr-PAq3JgTftcf2UhZBcBmK_00ff1+Q@mail.gmail.com>

Charvi Mendiratta <charvi077@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> 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.