[binutils-gdb] MIPS: use is_whitespace()

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Mon, 3 Feb 2025, Jan Beulich wrote:

> >  Why hurry so much with this change?  I've had a reply in the middle of 
> > being written with concerns about this change.
> 
> Well, such global changes easily go stale. It's not helpful to wait for
> too long. Plus I have another somewhat similar set pending, which I'd
> like to get out (and then soon-ish committed) as well.

 I saw a couple of port maintainers' voices trickling in slowly, so it 
didn't seem to me that you patch series was being ignored or silently 
approved.

> And then - hurry? I've given it a week. Other changes are made without
> even waiting a day.

 Well, some people including myself do this stuff in their free time and 
it's limited.  Plus last week I travelled, caught a cold, have had a day 
job and had other stuff to handle at priority.  Expecting that everyone 
interested in the free software community will be able to respond in a 
couple of days' time is I think overly optimistic.  It also helps making 
it clear that a change is going to be committed unless no objections are 
heard (and a deadline given).

 And the other changes you mention being rushed in instantaneously are a 
serious quality of review issue and bad engineering, which has been raised 
numerous times, but people seem not to listen.  I saw bad stuff to go in 
just because the interested parties had no time to react.  I'm deeply 
concerned this will cause a major issue sooner or later.

> In any event - please voice your concerns nevertheless. We can always
> (partly) revert the changes made, especially as long as the final patch
> of the series still didn't go in (which it didn't because the MMIX
> maintainer had raised concerns there, and hence that patch didn't go in
> either).

 I've completed and sent the reply now.  At least no functional issue at 
this time, just code quality.  We used to be really bad at it at times in 
the past, and I do hope we can prevent it from creeping in again nowadays, 
now that we've become more careful about it.

  Maciej