[MERGE] whitespace normalization

[Ben Finney]

Aaron Bentley <aaron at aaronbentley.com> writes:

> Ben Finney wrote:
> > The trouble is, I don't see what's preventing regressions from
> > making their way in.
> 
> I don't think we need to be that rigid about whitespace.

I'm having trouble seeing how you reconcile that assertion with:

> > That is, if Bazaar developer Albert has their editor configured to
> > fix whitespace automatically on files so he doesn't need to rely
> > on error-prone manual whitespace editing, what prevents spurious
> > conflicts with existing changes on lines that didn't already
> > conform?
> 
> Albert's change will not be merged because of its spurious changes.

These two seem to contradict.

By definition, in this scenario, Albert's change conforms with the
style guide; the existing lines do not. You're saying that Albert's
change will be rejected, because of differences in whitespace. Isn't
rejecting Albert's change over whitespace issues being overly rigid
about whitespace?

Why reject a change to whitespace that conforms with the stated coding
style guide, unless one *is* being rigid about whitespace?

-- 
 \     “When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my |
  `\   age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six |
_o__)                                  I'll be ninety.” —Steven Wright |
Ben Finney