✧✦Catherine✦✧14h ago

i'm at a loss of words after reading a paper about reformatting code using an ML model that has a measured statistical quantity A_c which says how often the reformatted code behaves the same as the original

the "ideal" (their choice of words) case is 64.2%

edit: this got popular without me really intending to, so here's why i'm reading research: i want a semantic style transfer tool that can automatically format a patch "the same as the rest of the file / rest of codebase is formatted" without the rigidity involved in black or rustfmt that i find so hostile to my workflow that i refuse to use them. obviously, i want a tool that generates semantically equivalent code 100.0% of time (ignoring source locations or reading from __file__)

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧14h ago
this isn't satire, this is real research published by IEEE/ACM
Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦13h ago

@whitequark @danlyke so … by "reformatted" I assume you mean aesthetically tidied up, with no change in functionality required?

If I got that right: wtf?

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧13h ago
@deborahh @danlyke this is what a reasonable person would understand to be "code style", yes
Show threadKen Butler12h ago
@whitequark @deborahh @danlyke ie, the sort of thing a linter does?
Show threadHenning Paul DC4HP
@nxskok @whitequark @deborahh @danlyke to be fair, according to the paper, replacing for with while loops and vice versa and the like was also the goal
6:33amWeb
Show threadilly [Shrimple-mode] 4h ago
@hennichodernich @danlyke @whitequark @deborahh @nxskok but like wouldn't that be easy to implement?
like

for(expression;bool expression; affectation) that would turn into
expression; while (bool) { //every possible branch inside while would get affectation }