[platform-ui-dev] Formatting

[Stefan Xenos <Stefan_Xenos@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Post-3.0, we started formatting the
code. This is causing a lot of problems for those of us trying to track
bugs through CVS.

The formatting is causing the following
problems:

1. It is hard to get patches working
between branches.
2. The CVS annotation view has become
useless -- it always shows the last person to format the file, not the
last person to actually change some line.
3. It is hard to track what was actually
changed in a particular checkin, since the formatter causes changes throughout
the file.
4. It is very hard to compare revisions.

From what I can tell, the only benefit
of the formatter is:

1. Some people find it prettier

The code in the UI plugins was consistent
and well formatted to begin with and the UI team has been doing a good
job observing the coding conventions. The rare deviations from the coding
conventions do not justify the problems being caused by the formatter.
The formatter can be used if we find individual horribly formatted files
-- the problem here is being caused by widespread automated formatting
of the codebase.

Until the CVS/JDT guys offer a feature
to "only format what has changed anyway since the last checkin",
I would strongly recommend that we stop using the formatter. 

  - Stefan