I used to have it on by default, but I found it getting in my way while developing. I'd do things like add some temporary debug code, or comment out part of an algorithm and then end up with a bunch of compile errors to fix. The compiler rightly points out that the code is of poor quality, but that's because I'm not done yet.
Warnings in that case are still useful. If the project is otherwise warning-free then it's easy enough to spot the new warnings and judge if they represent a real mistake.
My preference today is to set -Werror on CI builds. Any code that's final should be warning-free, but it's unnecessarily painful for work-in-progress.
In Java, the compiler complains about unreachable code and aborts. I think that's ridiculous. Sometimes it's useful to create unreachable code during development.
int foo = doSomething();
return 0; // Debug XXX DONOTSUBMIT
int bar = doSomethingElse();
return foo + bar;
It's hilarious, though, that this workaround works:
int foo = doSomething();
if (1 > 0) return 0; // Debug XXX DONOTSUBMIT
int bar = doSomethingElse();
return foo + bar;
Go's mandatory warnings are equally annoying. I'm sick and tired of little rarefied groups of language designers trying to impose their ideas about best practices on the rest of the world.
Warnings in that case are still useful. If the project is otherwise warning-free then it's easy enough to spot the new warnings and judge if they represent a real mistake.
My preference today is to set -Werror on CI builds. Any code that's final should be warning-free, but it's unnecessarily painful for work-in-progress.