[StyleCI] Enable no_useless_else

[carusogabriel]

• Laravel Version: 5.5.x

As suggested by @sisve in #22425, we should have a Coding Guidelines, and StyleCI has a no_useless_else fixer to help us. I couldn't find the .styleci.yml file to edit, so, how can we enable it?

[m1guelpf]

ping @GrahamCampbell

[GrahamCampbell]

👎 for adding this to the laravel preset. There are cases we don't want this.

[sisve]

So, how would the public know when to have the extra else-clauses, and when they should be removed? We can't have an endless stream of pull requests that are merged on the whim of The Merger.

[ryanwinchester]

If there are cases you don't want it, I'd imagine it's an exception to the rule. Can you not ignore specific cases in styleci?

[Stretsh]

While most devs I know believe that "useless elses" ARE the exception to the rule... Even "The Merger" seemed to have adhered to that standard...

[poppabear8883]

This is starting to annoy me tremendously ...

Where we at now ? L5.5 (soon 5.6) , PHP7 & PHP7.1 ? And we are just now discussing a style guideline for else statements ?

Are we going to be so petty to not leave this one up to the developer ?

I can't understand in this very specific case as to why this should even be a rule ? It should remain what it is .. a preference!

[GrahamCampbell]

So, how would the public know when to have the extra else-clauses, and when they should be removed? We can't have an endless stream of pull requests that are merged on the whim of The Merger.

They should just stop sending changes that add no value, frankly.

[lagbox]

Well people aren't going to stop the valueless changes now ...

When the core team isn't on the same page ... what hope is there for anyone on the outside.

[poppabear8883]

@lagbox Exactly ... well said!

[GrahamCampbell]

When the core team isn't on the same page

Nah, there's just a smaller number of people who want to change the code to not have else or elseif. If we were to change everything to that, it'd just make the code harder to read, and we'd probably get PRs from people trying to go the other way.

[poppabear8883]

Well when you have others merging valueless code randomly. What do you expect. And this is what I think @lagbox is referring to about the core team not being on the same page!

[GrahamCampbell]

I see what you mean, and don't worry, the core is on the same page. This doesn't mean contributions that change elses are always rejected.

[GrahamCampbell]

Well when you have others merging valueless code randomly.

If you say that to a new contributor, it just puts them off. It's important to find a balance, instead of just pissing everyone off.

[poppabear8883]

Yes, I do agree with that. However, its frustrating seeing PR's being closed that seems to be at least useful in some fashion, to only witness valueless changes to be merged. How does that not piss everyone off?

That is why this topic has gained so much steam. But to your point we shouldn't discourage contributions of any nature as the intent of a contribution is almost always positive. Just sometimes not necessary ;)