Title:

A Warning Against Excessive Verbosity in Code Style

Author:

A concerned minimalist who believes in trusting operator precedence and the elegance of concise expression.

Abstract:

This proposal introduces a new compiler warning category: -Wverbose-style, designed to gently steer developers toward more confident, geek-approved syntax. It targets overly cautious constructs that, while technically correct, lack stylistic flair and betray a fear of trusting the language

Motivation

Modern C++ encourages clarity and safety. However, some developers take this too far, writing code that is syntactically valid but stylistically bloated. Examples include:

This proposal aims to gently nudge developers toward more idiomatic and minimalist C++ — not by enforcing correctness, but by celebrating elegance.

2. Examples

✅ Preferred Geeklike Style:

/* clean, readable, confident */

  if (a && b && c) {  }

❌ Triggers -Wverbose-style:

// warning: verbose-style detected. Consider trusting operator precedence.

  if ((a && b) && (a && c)) 

// warning: verbose-style detected. Just write `if (flag)`

  if (flag == true) 

warning: verbose-style detected. Consider `std::string{}` or direct usage.

  std::string s = "";

warning: verbose-style detected. Initialization could be more idiomatic.

  int x = 0; // instead of `int x{};`

warning: verbose-style detected. Comment restates the obvious

  if (x > 0) // Check if x is positive

  i++; // Increment i

warning: verbose-style detected. Initialization could be more idiomatic. Consider direct usage

  std::vector<int> v = std::vector<int>();

Implementation

This warning would be opt-in via compiler flag:

g++ -Wverbose-style