[coreboot] branching flashrom?

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:36 AM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger
<c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net> wrote:

> There are philosophical differences as well. Peter and Stefan want to
> remove #defines and use magic values directly. I heavily disagree with
> that and believe the code is more readable if the meaning of a constant
> is visible in the code without having to consult data sheets. I hope
> that branching is a way to avoid revert wars or NACKs for design reasons.
>

one of the bad states an open source project can get into is what we
might call "gilding the lily". In this case it is not "dining
philosophers", it is "coding philosophers". The project is fine, but
there is this persistent urge to tweak here and there and make it
perfect. But, of course, nobody can ever agree on what constitutes
perfection. I am tending, nowadays, to like Plan 9 coding styles,
which are at variance with the coding styles of Linux and, hence,
coreboot. I'm not about to try and change that area, however :-)

There are all sorts of these types of design points that smart people
can disagree on. In many cases, both sides can be right, and have good
reasons. I think we want to be very careful not to take the
disagreements too far. We could end up damaging the project.

Constants visible in the code: if a constant is only ever used once,
it is hard to see the harm. If a constant is used more than once,
there is the possibility of a typo and confusion. We should keep those
factors in mind.

Just my $.02, which is now about .01 euro.

ron