Re: Emacs regexp scan (Sep 29)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Cc: mattiase@acm.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 12:19:16 -0700
> 
> I take your point about not modifying Emacs just for the fun of it. However, 
> when bugs are being fixed, it's OK if the person doing the fix takes the 
> opportunity to make nearby code clearer, as the added clarity can increase the 
> probability of the fix being correct and can simplify later maintenance. 

Sorry, I disagree.  Especially since "nearby" was IMO interpreted very
leniently here.  We only agreed to do "nearby" fixes that basically
don't affect the code to be executed, such as whitespace changes, typo
corrections, removal of the 'register' qualifier, etc.

> Although one can go overboard in the process and it's sometimes better to leave 
> code alone even when it is confusing

The code in question was not confusing by any measure, not IMO.  And
what's confusing for someone could not be confusing for others.  E.g.,
I consider the new code in tibetan.el "confusing", so should I go
ahead and change it back to what it was before?  I don't want us to
start disputes over stylistic issues, so let's respect stylistic
preferences of whoever wrote the code, especially if changing them
means a real non-trivial code change.