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    SubjectRe: [RFC 1/4] CONFIG_STABLE: Define it
    On 7/20/07, Chris Snook <csnook@redhat.com> wrote:
    > Satyam Sharma wrote:
    > > On 7/20/07, Chris Snook <csnook@redhat.com> wrote:
    > >> Satyam Sharma wrote:
    > >> > [ Just cleaning up my inbox, and stumbled across this thread ... ]
    > >> >
    > >> >
    > >> > On 5/31/07, clameter@sgi.com <clameter@sgi.com> wrote:
    > >> >> Introduce CONFIG_STABLE to control checks only useful for development.
    > >> >>
    > >> >> Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
    > >> >> [...]
    > >> >> menu "General setup"
    > >> >>
    > >> >> +config STABLE
    > >> >> + bool "Stable kernel"
    > >> >> + help
    > >> >> + If the kernel is configured to be a stable kernel then
    > >> various
    > >> >> + checks that are only of interest to kernel development
    > >> will be
    > >> >> + omitted.
    > >> >> +
    > >> >
    > >> >
    > >> > "A programmer who uses assertions during testing and turns them off
    > >> > during production is like a sailor who wears a life vest while drilling
    > >> > on shore and takes it off at sea."
    > >> > - Tony Hoare
    > >> >
    > >> >
    > >> > Probably you meant to turn off debug _output_ (and not _checks_)
    > >> > with this config option? But we already have CONFIG_FOO_DEBUG_BAR
    > >> > for those situations ...
    > >>
    > >> There are plenty of validation and debugging features in the kernel
    > >> that go WAY
    > >> beyond mere assertions, often imposing significant overhead
    > >> (particularly when
    > >> you scale up) or creating interfaces you'd never use unless you were
    > >> doing
    > >> kernel development work. You really do want these features completely
    > >> removed
    > >> from production kernels.
    > >
    > > As for entire such "development/debugging-related features", most (all,
    > > really)
    > > should anyway have their own config options.
    >
    > They do. With kconfig dependencies, we can ensure that those config options are
    > off when CONFIG_STABLE is set. That way you only have to set one option to
    > ensure that all these expensive checks are disabled.

    Oh, so you mean use this (the negation of this, actually) as a universal
    kconfig dependency of all other such development/debugging related stuff?
    Hmm, the name is quite misleading in that case.

    Anyway, what surprised me was 4/4 in this patchset. Funny that we wouldn't
    want to corrupt memory / trash hard disks / follow invalid pointers on a
    developers testbox, but (knowingly) want to do that on a production website
    running Google.com's website :-)
    -
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