[U-Boot] Policy for checkpatch usage?

[Scott Wood]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:15:40 +1000
Graeme Russ <graeme.russ at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 20, 2011, Detlev Zundel <dzu at denx.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> 
> >
> > As a base for discussion, what about this:
> >
> >   Use common sense in interpreting the results of checkpatch. Warnings
> >   that clearly only make sense in the Linux kernel can be ignored.  Also
> >   warnings produced for _context lines_ rather than actual changes can
> >   also be ignored.
> 
> One man's common sense is another's idiocy
> 
> I vote for a zero warnings, zero errors U-Boot specific checkpatch

I vote for "checkpatch is a tool that can help you find some style problems,
but is imperfect, and the things it complains about are of varying
importance".  If you insist on zero warnings, what's the difference between
a warning and an error?  And will there then be a U-Boot-specific coding
style document to match?  Will anyone that wants to submit a patch that
checkpatch erroneously complains about have to first submit a patch for
checkpatch (first learning Perl if need be)?

There's a lot more "common sense" that needs to be applied when writing
software than where to stick what kind and amount of whitespace.
Guidelines are good -- zero-tolerance obedience to a script, not so much.

-Scott