From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2009-10-01T03:50:06+09:00
Subject: Re: How do I use nitpick

Ryan Davis wrote:
> On Sep 29, 2009, at 21:40 , Michael W. Ryder wrote:
> 
>> So my options are:
>>  1.  Downgrade to 1.8.7
> 
> yes, that should work.
> 
>>  2.  Somehow patch ParseTree to work with 1.9 which seems to be a    
>> f		      feature request for over a year now.
> 
> can't happen, as john pointed out.
> 
>>  3.  Patch nitpick to work with ruby_parser
> 
> this would probably work fine, but I don't know nitpick so I can only  
> guess that it is a static-only analysis tool.
> 
>>  4.  Forget about using any kind of lint program with Ruby.
> 
> not much gray in your world, is there? :P
> 
>> Personally I do not like any of the above.  I can understand  
>> programs written for version 1.8.7 not working with 1.8.4, but not  
>> programs written for 1.8.7 not working for 1.9.1.  Whatever happened  
>> to backwards compatibility?
> 
> 1.9.x does not (nor did it ever intend to) maintain backwards  
> compatibility with 1.8. Lots of stuff went in 1.9, that's what  
> progress is for.
> 
> See also: perl 4 to perl 5, perl 5 to perl 6, deprecations across java  
> versions, industrial revolution, ponies.
> 
> 
So my best choice is to write my own version of lint using no 
dependencies on gems which may be tied to a specific language feature 
that may or may not work with the next release of Ruby.