Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 11 Sep 2000 13:21:55 +0200 (CEST) | From | Marco Colombo <> | Subject | Re: Availability of kdb |
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On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Marco Colombo wrote: > > > > As you said, the are two kinds of reactions. I don't understand why you > > think that the presence of a debugger will *prevent* people from doing > > the Right Thing and "think about problems another way". Are debuggers so > > evil? Will a KDB option in the standard tarball seduce ALL the smart guys > > , and even YOU, and lead you all to the Dark Side? Do you believe a > > debugger has such a power? > > Go back. Read the mail again. > > Read the part about weeding out the people who are not careful. > > Think about it. > > Carefully.
I've done.
I understand you want to implement a filter. You are not trying to increase the quality of Linux kernel developers as a group, you're just implementing a 'high level' filter on your mailbox (something procmail is not able to handle yet), just letting only the people you like in. In that, yes, you're a bastard. B-) Your right, anyway.
I also understand your 'rabbits' arguments. You don't buy me with them. Human brains are quite different from rabbits. All historical attempts to improve them *by selection* failed soundly. You simply don't make people better *reducing* their freedom. A good programmer is a good programmer no matter how many debuggers are available out there. I do believe that Linux kernel programming is NOT the place to start learing programming at all. So, most kernel newbie are already experienced programmers. They may have the kind of "taste" you like or not, but hardly you're going to change thier habits. The ones with a bad taste won't be able to produce patches / bug fixes anyway, so what's the deal? Even if this is just a mail filter, it is not an effective one. Programmers who are not careful, the ones you don't like, are not going to produce anything. With or without a debugger. And even if they produce bad patches, you, or some of the guys you like, will look at them, just to see where the bug is, and produce better ones.
Of course, all this under the statement that 'you include into your tarballs whatever you like'. I'm not advocating the inclusion of anything into the "standard" kernel. I'm just replying to your arguments. [ I put this sentence last since I'm a bastard, too... B-) ]
> > Linus > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >
.TM. -- ____/ ____/ / / / / Marco Colombo ___/ ___ / / Technical Manager / / / ESI s.r.l. _____/ _____/ _/ Colombo@ESI.it
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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