I'm confused by the name setValueForPoints(...) -- this doesn't "set" anything?

welllllll it "sets" the "value" for "points". just change it to "get" ?

This all seemed to work, but I'm not great at understanding what's under the hood here.

The one in generateOldValue() is necessary because of T12678. When we load data from MySQL, it always comes back as "3.5" (a string) even if we wrote 3.5 (a double) to the database. If we fixed T12678, we could remove the extra code in generateOldValue().

The one in generateNewValue() is necessary because data coming through Conduit and the web isn't always strongly-typed today. This is getting better going forward, but we still have some cases -- at least, in general -- where data makes it to an Editor without type enforcement. In Maniphest, two examples are possibly the frozen method maniphest.createtask and the batch editor. I think neither of these can actually set point values, but since we still have a fair amount of this stuff kicking around we're a bit safer with extra typecasting. We could reduce or remove this in the long run as all the weird pathways to get to an Editor get cleaned up, and then make validateTransactions() stricter (explicitly require a double, not just a numeric string).

The one in applyInternalEffects() should not be necessary because we call generateNewValue() on the value first. That is, the sequence here is:

• Something generates the value, e.g. a user posting a form. The data is a probably a string a this point, like "3.5", since HTTP POST doesn't have datatypes.
• The value gets turned into a transaction, possibly without typecasting. It may be a double by now, but it may still be a string like "3.5".
• The value gets validated by validateTransactions(). This allows "3.5" (string) or 3.5 (double) through, but not "cat" or false or -6.
• The value gets normalized by generateNewValue(). This always leaves us with 3.5 (double) or null.
• The value gets applied by applyInternalEffects().

Thanks!!

I sure hope that comment is VERY sincere!!!

I thought hard about how many exclamation marks to use to convey internet sincerity.