[Xastir-dev] Proposal to change project coding standards: Please vote!

[Curt Mills]

We've been talking in another thread about changing the project coding
standards, specifically the number of columns to indent and the bracing
standard.

Our two relevant Wiki pages are:
http://xastir.org/index.php/HowTo:Contributing
and
http://xastir.org/index.php/HowTo:Developer_Guidelines_and_Notes


1) Indents: I originally proposed that we go from 4-column indents to
2-character indents (Spaces-only, no tab characters unless required for a
specific tool). I'm going to back-peddle after reading a bunch of stuff on
the 'net: People say 4-char indent for C and C++ makes it more readable.

***** Please vote on number of chars per indent. *****


2) Bracing alignment: I prefer lining up the braces vertically which I find
shows the structure of the code much better.

We currently use:

    if (true) {
        do something;
    else {
        do something else;
    }

I'm proposing:

    if (true)
    {
        do something;
    }
    else
    {
        do something else;
    }

***** Please vote whether to line up the braces. *****


3) Optional bracing: I prefer to include braces when they're optional to
improve readability. An example case: An "if" statement with one statement
in the "true" block can be written as:

    if (true)
        do something;

-or-

    if (true)
    {
      do something;
    }

I prefer the latter. It's not always immediately obvious what you're doing
without the braces, particularly when there isn't an "else" clause and/or
indenting gets messed up.

***** Please vote whether to include braces when optional. *****


4) One new thing we need (At least with newer compilers) is a comment where
a case statement drops through to the next case statement. This example is
from db.c:

            case 'O':
                symbol.aprs_type = '\\';
                /* Falls through. */

            case 'B':

Without that "Falls through" comment we get a compiler warning, so please
add that from now on. This item does not require a vote. I already fixed
the sources where we needed it.

We could specify a whole bunch of other stuff but the rest isn't all that
important.

My votes:
1) 4-char spaces-only
2) Line up braces vertically
3) Include braces when optional

-- 
Curt, WE7U        http://we7u.wetnet.net        http://www.sarguydigital.com