Re: [PATCH v2] CodingGuidelines: explicitly allow "local" for test scripts

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 4, 2021, 03:01 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqpmy76w31.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <877dkgxk9p.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> Is there any portability reason to avoid "local" in the porcelains? I
> don't have any plans for using it, but I don't see why we'd explicitly
> forbid it.

Things that are not even in POSIX are forbidden unless explicitly allowed.

In general, he way we encouraged people to think has been "don't use it, it is not even in POSIX" and "even if it is in POSIX, we know the support by platform/implementation X is broken, so let's not use it". It has been successfully helped us to stay out of portability troubles.

There may be a few tiny cases where we said "practically everybody we care about has it, even though it is not in POSIX, and it makes our life so vastly be better" to explicitly allow some feature, though.

And "local"? Not absolutely essential, unless you are doing a library that you want to avoid stepping on users' toes. Besides, we are no longer adding scripted Porcelains left and right---rather, people are actively rewriting them.

Thanks.