Re: [kbuild-devel] Re: [2.6 patch] Kconfig: rename "---help---" to "help" in Kconfig files (first part)

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com>]

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On Tue, 3 May 2005, Bodo Eggert <harvested.in.lkml@posting.7eggert.dyndns.org> wrote:

> Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 3 May 2005, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>
> >> IMHO, Kconfig files are quite readable due to this indentation even
> >> though only a minority of the entries was using "---help---" even
> >> before this patch.
> >
> > So why exactly has to be removed? Is it ugly?
>
> IMO yes, it's less readable for me than "help". ¢¢

the main problem with having two alternatives for the same thing (in
*any* context) is that it gives beginners a distorted sense of what is
acceptable usage.

if you accept both "help" and "---help---", then you just *know* that
a beginner will notice that and start thinking, "hmmm ... well, if
both of those are alright, maybe "--help--" or "-help-" is alright,
too.  and maybe it's just the leading hyphens that really count, not
the trailing hyphens.  and maybe ..."

kbuild is already over-convoluted as it is.  please don't give folks
even more redundant ways to do exactly the same thing.

rday