Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> The last remaining sticking point is what to do with the duplicated shell
>> function.
>
> What is the problem with leaving it as it is; having it as a duplicate
> function. It's not a *huge* maintenance burden, and it's a big problem
> if the functions diverge.
It is not even funny to see these two conflicting claims made in a
single sentence. Given that you are aware that it will cause a huge
problem to the end users if they diverge, is there any mechanism in
the result of applying the series to prevent it from happening?
The preventative measure could be any of these:
(1) a build structure that arranges the sources in such a way that
there is only one copy for anybody who edits the function, so
that by definition they cannot diverge;
(2) a test that causes "make test" to notice that the duplicated
copies diverged and makes the test fail, so that such a
breakage is caught before being pushed out; or
(3) a note near each of the duplicated definitions of the function,
telling people that when touching one copy, the modifier must
change the other copy to keep the duplicated definitions match,
so that reviewers would notice the note in the context of a
faulty patch that touches only one side.
I did not see anything like these.
I think I've sent out a patch along the line of (1) in an attempt to
help, but I do not recall you responded to it in any way. And the
first thing you do is to complain. The maintenance burden could be
made into "not huge", but what you are doing is to actively make it
more burdensome than necessary.
> I still plan to add a native helper for this, but I don't see what
> that would block these patches.
I do not want to see a native helper, if other approaches would
equally work to prevent divergence from happening, in which case
such a change to the core would be a useless code churn.
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