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+# Style guide
+
+Like other projects, we also have some guidelines to keep to the code.
+For the overall Marionette project, a few rough rules are:
+
+* Make your code readable and sensible, and don’t try to be
+ clever. Prefer simple and easy solutions over more convoluted
+ and foreign syntax.
+
+* Fixing style violations whilst working on a real change as a
+ preparatory clean-up step is good, but otherwise avoid useless
+ code churn for the sake of conforming to the style guide.
+
+* Code is mutable and not written in stone. Nothing that
+ is checked in is sacred and we encourage change to make
+ remote/marionette a pleasant ecosystem to work in.
+
+## JavaScript
+
+Marionette is written in JavaScript and ships
+as part of Firefox. We have access to all the latest ECMAScript
+features currently in development, usually before it ships in the
+wild and we try to make use of new features when appropriate,
+especially when they move us off legacy internal replacements
+(such as Promise.jsm and Task.jsm).
+
+One of the peculiarities of working on JavaScript code that ships as
+part of a runtime platform is, that unlike in a regular web document,
+we share a single global state with the rest of Firefox. This means
+we have to be responsible and not leak resources unnecessarily.
+
+JS code in Gecko is organised into _modules_ carrying _.js_ or _.jsm_
+file extensions. Depending on the area of Gecko you’re working on,
+you may find they have different techniques for exporting symbols,
+varying indentation and code style, as well as varying linting
+requirements.
+
+To export symbols to other Marionette modules, remember to assign
+your exported symbols to the shared global `this`:
+
+ const EXPORTED_SYMBOLS = ["PollPromise", "TimedPromise"];
+
+When importing symbols in Marionette code, try to be specific about
+what you need:
+
+ const { TimedPromise } = ChromeUtils.import(
+ "chrome://remote/content/marionette/sync.js"
+ );
+
+We prefer object assignment shorthands when redefining names,
+for example when you use functionality from the `Components` global:
+
+ const {classes: Cc, interfaces: Ci, utils: Cu, results: Cr} = Components;
+
+When using symbols by their own name, the assignment name can be
+omitted:
+
+ const {TYPE_ONE_SHOT, TYPE_REPEATING_SLACK} = Ci.nsITimer;
+
+In addition to the default [Mozilla eslint rules], we have [our
+own specialisations] that are stricter and enforce more security.
+A few notable examples are that we disallow fallthrough `case`
+statements unless they are explicitly grouped together:
+
+ switch (x) {
+ case "foo":
+ doSomething();
+
+ case "bar": // <-- disallowed!
+ doSomethingElse();
+ break;
+
+ case "baz":
+ case "bah": // <-- allowed (-:
+ doCrazyThings();
+ }
+
+We disallow the use of `var`, for which we always prefer `let` and
+`const` as replacements. Do be aware that `const` does not mean
+that the variable is immutable: just that it cannot be reassigned.
+We require all lines to end with semicolons, disallow construction
+of plain `new Object()`, require variable names to be camel-cased,
+and complain about unused variables.
+
+For purely aesthetic reasons we indent our code with two spaces,
+which includes switch-statement `case`s, and limit the maximum
+line length to 78 columns. When you need to wrap a statement to
+the next line, the second line is indented with four spaces, like this:
+
+ throw new TypeError(
+ "Expected an element or WindowProxy, " +
+ pprint`got: ${el}`);
+
+This is not normally something you have to think to deeply about as
+it is enforced by the [linter]. The linter also has an automatic
+mode that fixes and formats certain classes of style violations.
+
+If you find yourself struggling to fit a long statement on one line,
+this is usually an indication that it is too long and should be
+split into multiple lines. This is also a helpful tip to make the
+code easier to read. Assigning transitive values to descriptive
+variable names can serve as self-documentation:
+
+ let location = event.target.documentURI || event.target.location.href;
+ log.debug(`Received DOM event ${event.type} for ${location}`);
+
+On the topic of variable naming the opinions are as many as programmers
+writing code, but it is often helpful to keep the input and output
+arguments to functions descriptive (longer), and let transitive
+internal values to be described more succinctly:
+
+ /** Prettifies instance of Error and its stacktrace to a string. */
+ function stringify(error) {
+ try {
+ let s = error.toString();
+ if ("stack" in error) {
+ s += "\n" + error.stack;
+ }
+ return s;
+ } catch (e) {
+ return "<unprintable error>";
+ }
+ }
+
+When we can, we try to extract the relevant object properties in
+the arguments to an event handler or a function:
+
+ const responseListener = ({name, target, json, data}) => { … };
+
+Instead of:
+
+ const responseListener = msg => {
+ let name = msg.name;
+ let target = msg.target;
+ let json = msg.json;
+ let data = msg.data;
+ …
+ };
+
+All source files should have `"use strict";` as the first directive
+so that the file is parsed in [strict mode].
+
+Every source code file that ships as part of the Firefox bundle
+must also have a [copying header], such as this:
+
+ /* This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
+ * License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this file,
+ * You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/. */
+
+New xpcshell test files _should not_ have a license header as all
+new Mozilla tests should be in the [public domain] so that they can
+easily be shared with other browser vendors. We want to re-license
+existing tests covered by the [MPL] so that they can be shared.
+We very much welcome your help in doing version control archeology
+to make this happen!
+
+The practical details of working on the Marionette code is outlined
+in [Contributing.md], but generally you do not have to re-build
+Firefox when changing code. Any change to remote/marionette/*.js
+will be picked up on restarting Firefox. The only notable exception
+is remote/components/Marionette.jsm, which does require
+a re-build.
+
+[strict mode]: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Strict_mode
+[Mozilla eslint rules]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/.eslintrc.js
+[our own specialisations]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/remote/marionette/.eslintrc.js
+[linter]: #linting
+[copying header]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/headers/
+[public domain]: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
+[MPL]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/
+[Contributing.md]: ./Contributing.md
+
+## Python
+
+TODO
+
+## Documentation
+
+We keep our documentation in-tree under [remote/doc/marionette]
+and [testing/geckodriver/doc]. Updates and minor changes to
+documentation should ideally not be scrutinised to the same degree
+as code changes to encourage frequent updates so that the documentation
+does not go stale. To that end, documentation changes with `r=me`
+from module peers are permitted.
+
+Use fmt(1) or an equivalent editor specific mechanism (such as Meta-Q
+in Emacs) to format paragraphs at a maximum width of 75 columns
+with a goal of roughly 65. This is equivalent to `fmt -w 75 -g 65`,
+which happens to be the default on BSD and macOS.
+
+We endeavour to document all _public APIs_ of the Marionette component.
+These include public functions—or command implementations—on
+the `GeckoDriver` class, as well as all exported symbols from
+other modules. Documentation for non-exported symbols is not required.
+
+[remote/doc/marionette]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/remote/marionette/doc
+[testing/geckodriver/doc]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/testing/geckodriver/doc
+
+## Linting
+
+Marionette consists mostly of JavaScript (server) and Python (client,
+harness, test runner) code. We lint our code with [mozlint],
+which harmonises the output from [eslint] and [flake8].
+
+To run the linter with a sensible output:
+
+ % ./mach lint -funix remote/marionette
+
+For certain classes of style violations the eslint linter has
+an automatic mode for fixing and formatting your code. This is
+particularly useful to keep to whitespace and indentation rules:
+
+ % ./mach eslint --fix remote/marionette
+
+The linter is also run as a try job (shorthand `ES`) which means
+any style violations will automatically block a patch from landing
+(if using Autoland) or cause your changeset to be backed out (if
+landing directly on mozilla-inbound).
+
+If you use git(1) you can [enable automatic linting] before you push
+to a remote through a pre-push (or pre-commit) hook. This will
+run the linters on the changed files before a push and abort if
+there are any problems. This is convenient for avoiding a try run
+failing due to a stupid linting issue.
+
+[mozlint]: /code-quality/lint/mozlint.rst
+[eslint]: /code-quality/lint/linters/eslint.rst
+[flake8]: /code-quality/lint/linters/flake8.rst
+[enable automatic linting]: /code-quality/lint/usage.html#using-a-vcs-hook