Re: Should we remove -Wdeclaration-after-statement?

On Mon, 29 Jan 2024 at 10:42, Mark Dilger <mark.dilger@enterprisedb.com>
wrote:

> I don't think anybody is proposing re-working the existing codebase. I
> understand this to be only about allowing new code to use the newer style.
> Personally, I like, as much as possible, to use initializations to const
> variables and avoid assignment operators, so I much prefer to declare at
> first (and usually only) assignment.
>
> I was responding to Jelte's paragraph upthread:
>
> > On Dec 27, 2023, at 9:59 AM, Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres@jeltef.nl>
> wrote:
> >
> > But if the only reason not to remove the
> > warning is that then there would be two styles of declaration in the
> > codebase, then I'm happy to create another refactoring script that
> > moves declarations down to their first usage. (Which could then be run
> > on all backbranches to make sure there is no backpatching pain)
>
> I find that kind of gratuitous code churn highly unpleasant.
>

I stand corrected, and agree completely. It’s hard to imagine a change of
such a global nature that would be a big enough improvement that it would
be a good idea to apply to existing code. Personally I’m fine with code of
different vintages using different styles, as long as it’s understood why
the difference exists — in this case because tons of code has already been
written and isn’t going to be re-styled except possibly as part of other
changes.