Re: [Outreachy kernel] [PATCH] Staging: rtl8723bs: rtw_mlme: Remove unnecessary conditions

[Julia Lawall]

On Thu, 12 Mar 2020, Stefano Brivio wrote:

> Hi Lakshmi,
>
> On Wed, 11 Mar 2020 19:42:06 -0700
> Lakshmi Ramasubramanian <nramas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On 3/11/2020 6:58 AM, Shreeya Patel wrote:
> >
> > > Remove unnecessary if and else conditions since both are leading to the
> > > initialization of "phtpriv->ampdu_enable" with the same value.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Shreeya Patel <shreeya.patel23498@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > Stating this based on the patch descriptions I have seen.
> > Others, please advise\correct me if I am wrong.
> >
> > Patch description should state the problem first[1] and then describe
> > how that is fixed in the given patch.
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > In the function rtw_update_ht_cap(), phtpriv->ampdu_enable is set to the
> > same value in both if and else statements.
> >
> > This patch removes this unnecessary if-else statement.
>
> That's my general preference as well, but I can't find any point in the
> "Describe your changes" section of submitting-patches.rst actually
> defining the order. I wouldn't imply that from the sequence the steps
> are presented in.
>
> In case it's possible to say everything with a single statement as
> Shreeya did here, though, I guess that becomes rather a linguistic
> factor, and I personally prefer the concise version here.

https://kernelnewbies.org/PatchPhilosophy suggests:

In patch descriptions and in the subject, it is common and preferable to
use present-tense, imperative language. Write as if you are telling git
what to do with your patch.

It provides the following as an example of a good description:

    somedriver: fix sleep while atomic in send_a_packet()

    The send_a_packet() function is called in atomic context but takes a mutex,
    causing a sleeping while atomic warning.  Change the skb_lock to be a spin
    lock instead of a mutex to fix.

So this illustrates the order that Lakshmi suggests, even though I don't
think that order is ever suggested explicitly.  On the other hand it
avoids "This patch...", which would add some clutter, in my opinion.

julia

>
> --
> Stefano
>
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