Re: [Nmh-workers] Development Questions. check Programs. register.

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> Is there a policy not to use nmh's code in the test/*.c helper programs?
> None of them use #includes from ./h and do all their own malloc, etc.,
> checking.

I don't think there's a policy, per se.  But you almost never want the 
test harness using the code under test to test itself.

> C's `register' keyword is sprinkled liberally in some source. [...]
> Anyone object to removing them?

Have at it.

> There's a lot of duplication of source across files.  docs/TODO alludes
> to this and I noticed it when checking semi-automatic edits.  I'll try
> and clean some more of it up though I fear I'm creating ever bigger
> problems for others to integrate unpushed changes?

It might be better to defer a lot of this cleanup until after 1.7 ships. 
Refactoring code like this always presents the chance of introducing 
obscure bugs that can be difficult to provoke, let alone track down.

> docs/historical has a whole tree of old MH source.  Whilst useful, I
> wonder if that can just be tagged and removed so it doesn't clutter `git
> grep', etc., output?

I would prefer it stays.  It's a very useful reference when trying to 
determine the intended behaviour of an obscure chunk of code.

For dealing with grep, I almost always use a wrapper script that invokes 
grep, then filters out stuff I don't want to see (at $WORK this 
is typically .svn/ noise, but anything that can be matched by an RE is 
fair game).

--lyndon