On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 3:19 AM, Ian Boston <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 7 Mar 2009, at 12:56, Santiago Gala wrote: > >> El vie, 06-03-2009 a las 08:13 -0800, Adam Winer escribió: >>> >>> What is the advantage of removing trailing whitespace? I can't see a >>> reason to do it at all. Unlike removing unnecessary imports (say), it >>> doesn't improve the codebase in any objective manner. >>> >> >> The typical reason for removing whitespace is that whitespace changes >> cause puzzling spurious diffs, where nothing changes but some whitespace >> change gets committed. So, while it does not improve the codebase viewed >> statically, useless whitespace are prone to change in time, and those >> changes pollute the sequence of changesets that make the history of the >> codebase. Hence the reason why Ian asked for a separate commit for >> whitespace cleanup. > > You put it far better than I did.
A separate commit is undoubtedly better than repeated diffs in lots of commits. Hopefully no one disagrees with that. And I'm fine with tools that strip trailing whitespace on lines you're already editing. But no-one has really explained why any cleanup is necessary, beyond "some diff tools show red boxes"... What's your reason for favoring cleanup? > Thank you > Ian > > >> >> >> >> As for benefits of not having them, the simplest one is that codereview >> and other diff tools won't flag trailing whitespace and whitespace >> between tabs in red in ulterior diffs involving lines with them. But >> whitespace cleanups are only worthwhile if new commits are disciplined >> to not bring them in again. >> >> Regards >> Santiago >> >>> Cheers, >>> Adam >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Vincent Siveton <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> The majority of the source code had already removed trailing >>>> whitespace. Some statistics: >>>> - around 600 java files >>>> - only around 140 java files don't removed trailing whitespace >>>> >>>> So, IMHO removing trailing whitespace is the way to go. >>>> >>>> WDYT? >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> >>>> Vincent >>>> >>>> 2009/3/5 Adam Winer <[email protected]>: >>>>> >>>>> Instead of 2 commits, could you change it to not remove trailing >>>>> whitespaces? It unnecessarily obfuscates history, especially when >>>>> there's trailing whitespace on non-blank lines. This is typically an >>>>> option that can be adjusted in an IDE. >>>>> >>>>> -- Adam >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Vincent Siveton <[email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Adam, >>>>>> >>>>>> 2009/3/5 Adam Winer <[email protected]>: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I see a lot of whitespace changes with each submission, apparently >>>>>>> around blank lines. Any way you could avoid making these changes? >>>>>>> It's much harder to read diffs like this. >>>>>> >>>>>> Yeah, my IDE removes trailing whitespaces. I will do 2 commits next >>>>>> time. >>>>>> >>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>> >>>>>> Vincent >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> > >
