Re: [PATCH] Makefile(s): avoid recipe prefix in conditional statements

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 8, 2024, 23:34 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqh6gb5szm.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <606990048585347654f3b4b187ec27f4dc1b85e3.camel@gnu.org>

Paul Smith <psmith@gnu.org> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Just to note that this usage clearly contravenes the documentation,
> which states that preprocessor statement lines cannot begin with a TAB.
> It was a bug that this was allowed by the GNU Make parser.
>
> I understand that in many projects (Linux, probably Git :)) if the
> documentation and behavior disagreed then the documentation would be
> changed, not the behavior.

If a bug is left in a released version long enough, it becomes a feature your users depend upon. We saw that happen to us, I am sure the mantra "don't break userspace" the kernel project had comes from the same place.

I am not sure what benefits are gained by the existing users with this change to ease fixing some parser bug (I didn't bother to see your bug tracker) so I cannot judge if the benefit outweighs the cost of them all having to scramble and adjust to the new world order.