From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932691Ab0CJSca (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:32:30 -0500 Received: from einhorn.in-berlin.de ([192.109.42.8]:59127 "EHLO einhorn.in-berlin.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932652Ab0CJSc3 (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:32:29 -0500 X-Envelope-From: stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de Message-ID: <4B97E5B0.5070900@s5r6.in-berlin.de> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:32:16 +0100 From: Stefan Richter User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20100102 SeaMonkey/1.1.18 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Joe Perches CC: LKML , Greg Kroah-Hartman , devel , Andy Whitcroft Subject: Re: Tuxradar patching article and [PATCH] scripts/cvt_kernel_style.pl References: <1268177526.1545.62.camel@Joe-Laptop.home> In-Reply-To: <1268177526.1545.62.camel@Joe-Laptop.home> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.96.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Joe Perches wrote: > There was an article published recently: > http://www.tuxradar.com/content/newbies-guide-hacking-linux-kernel > that seems to have prompted several new contributors (welcome) > to create style reformatting patches. Uh oh. How can a newcomer know what good style is? Please start your career of kernel contributions differently: - Test new kernels. Report issues and work with the developers to get the issues fixed. - If there is a bug which nags you but there doesn't seem to be an active developer to fix it anytime soon, try to fix it yourself. Or if you are aware of a small RFE for a subsystem which interests you personally, try to implement that small feature. It doesn't make sense to start kernel development with something which you are likely not going to connect with personally. (Reformat others' code? Better write your own code, i.e. a bug fix or a small feature.) PS: I am also saying this because I repeatedly see "style fixes" posted which are questionable at best, or actually degrade style, or even introduce bugs. PPS: How can a script know what good style is? -- Stefan Richter -=====-==-=- --== -=-=- http://arcgraph.de/sr/