[Info-vax] [OT?] Should compiler warnings be treated as errors ?

[Bob Gezelter]

On Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 1:52:25 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> Interesting article in The Register: 
> 
> https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/08/compromise_linux_kernel_compiler_warnings/ 
> 
> Linus has modified the Linux build procedures to turn compiler warnings 
> into errors. I strongly agree with him and it's the same flag I use on 
> my own code. 
> 
> However, some other people do not agree with him. Given how important 
> the Linux kernel has become, I am surprised by that. There would be 
> some initial cleanup pain, but IMHO, it's a flag that should have 
> been enabled long ago and you never know if that cleanup will find 
> some issues in the existing code. 
> 
> What do you think ? Should compiler warnings be treated as errors ? 
> 
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
Simon,

I generally also treat "warnings" as errors for the purpose of whether code is "clean".

Long, long ago, I discovered that almost all warnings were easily correctable and were often indicative of a problematic code segments.

An example was FORTRAN's implicit define "feature". One of the earliest FORTRAN compilers I encountered (maybe WATFIV), had a warning for variables that were rarely used, perhaps once. The most likely cause was a keyboarding error.

As reported it is far easier to fix a compiler warning than to debug an error.
 
I have compiled code with significant numbers of warnings. One never knows whether the warning is an issue, or a minor quirk. Worse, if one has large numbers of warnings, it becomes difficult to separate the real issues from the noise.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com