Re: Possible DEP proposal - contribution preferences

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Russ Allbery:
> Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> writes:
> 
>> Let's see if Debian can agree on a single normalization of 822-ish
>> files.  For starters, I disagree that "wrap-and-sort -a" is a suitable
>> normalization, as that will involve re-indentation when keys change.
>> Instead, I propose this as starting point:
> 
>>   wrap-and-sort -ast
> 
> I've been using wrap-and-sort -ast on all of my packages for a while, with
> much the same justification.
> 
> My recollection is that the relevant Config::Model model has a slightly
> different preferred normalization form?  Those are the two most common
> tools used for this, I think, so if the two of them could agree, that
> would go a long way towards having a common format (and this may have
> already happened without me knowing).
> 

Personally, I would be fine with a variant of wrap-and-sort (-bastk or
there abouts) being a Debian-wide recommendation/default *if*
wrap-and-sort would preserve comments.

A case where comments are important to me is the d/control of debhelper,
where I document the rationale for many of the versioned
(build-)dependencies.  It would be a non-starter for me to maintain
those comments elsewhere simply because wrap-and-sort keeps steam
rolling them into oblivion.

~Niels