Bug#884499: lintian: Pedantic check for packages not using debhelper or CDBS

[Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org>]

Hi Russ & Scott,

> I'm not sure how one could possibly be more clear.  If one's definition of
> lintian-clean includes --pedantic, one's definition of lintian-clean is,
> well, wrong.

There is no doubt that you are absolutely right in a technical sense
and maintainers should not be using --pedantic in this way.

However, my experience with being an author of a handful of static
analysis tools is that people have a slight tendency to delegate
thinking to the computer's output. The addition of an objective
target (ie. zero output) only encourages our post-lapsarian brains to
make poor, err, compromises.

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the angle Scott was
pushing. :)

How could we make --pedantic more useful/obvious/something?
Ironically, if it were less useful in a strict sense — for example,
if we moved some P: tags to I: — it would get less incorrect usage. :p


Best wishes,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
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