Coder - It's a Community Tool

I started this email to make one point, which is, at the end
of this 
email, but it occurred to me that there are more important
coder issues 
to bring up.

1.  I'm seeking a co-maintainer for the coder module.  You
should have 
some Drupal credentials...

2.  Help define the future of coder?
- I've been asked to run some rules on cvs ci
- good idea/bad idea?
- should coder be an authoritative tool verses a helper tool
(i.e., 
prevent code checkins on certain types of failures)
- other ideas (... hopefully your idea comes with coding
keyboard ;)

3.  A developer recently suggested that they would change
their module 
just to remove a coder warning, even though they knew the
warning to be 
bogus.  IMO, this is a mistake.  You are smarter than coder.
 Coder is 
just a tool to help you.  It flags potential problems and
points you to 
the documentation.  It's up to you to decide if there's
really a 
problem. If it's a security related issue, you should look
at it very 
closely and be absolutely certain before you ignore the
warning, but the 
decision is still yours.  Please don't change your code just
to get rid 
of a coder warning.

-- 
Doug Green
douggreendouggreenconsulting.com
904-583-3342

Bringing Ideas to Life with Software Artistry and
Invention...

On Nov 6, 2007 3:01 PM, Doug Green <douggreendouggreenconsulting.com> wrote:
> 3.  A developer recently suggested that they would
change their module
> just to remove a coder warning, even though they knew
the warning to be
> bogus.  IMO, this is a mistake.  You are smarter than
coder.  Coder is
> just a tool to help you.  It flags potential problems
and points you to
> the documentation.  It's up to you to decide if there's
really a
> problem. If it's a security related issue, you should
look at it very
> closely and be absolutely certain before you ignore the
warning, but the
> decision is still yours.  Please don't change your code
just to get rid
> of a coder warning.

I have also seen comments on translation template extractor
that
"coder says my module is fine and still translation
template extractor
says it is bogus, and strings are not possible to extract,
so the
template extractor should be in error". After all it
seems like coder
module is increasingly considered the reference for what's
considered
good coding, and as always, referring to a computer check
for coding
practices is not the best idea.

Anyway, I fully plan to make the template extractor an
optional coder
plugin so coder would report extraction errors as well. (It
is far
from hard to do, but still need to set aside time to do it,
contributions welcome).

Gabor