Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:14:51 +0100 | From | Ingo Molnar <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] x86: remove byte locks |
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* Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > > > > Why can't this just be somewhere in documentation? (possibly even with > > > > > the byte locks code as a reference). > > > > Because Ingo's compil-o-matic will never fail on a documentation error. > > > > > > Hmm, I have always considered the "we don't accept any code that would > > > have zero in-kernel users" rule as a quite reasonable one, at least in > > > order to prevent from bloat and code getting confusing. > > > But apparently it's not the intention here. > > > > > > > > It is IMHO just totally confusing to have a spinlock implementation that is > > > > > not used at all in the tree. It took me quite some time to go through this > > > > > until I finally figured out that this code is actually never used. > > > > > Currently, on first sight it might seem that byte locks are used whenever > > > > > CONFIG_PARAVIRT is set, which is not true. > > > > Well, a comment next to the code explaining the rationale probably > > > > wouldn't go astray. > > > > > > I still strongly feel that if the only purpose of the code in kernel is > > > "to provide example", then it belongs to documentation. > > > > > > > > And apparently even Linus got confused by this, which also tells us > > > > > something by itself, see [1]. > > > > > [1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=123144211719754&w=2 > > > > It tells us that Linus couldn't give a rat's arse about virtualization, > > > > which is just something we have to cope with ;) > > > > > > I am afraid this has nothing to do with virtualization. It's simply > > > confusing when looking at the code. > > > > i'd tend to agree, that area of code is quite complex already. > > ping, any final word here? Should I consider the silence a implicit nak, > or should I resend the patch?
ok - i've applied it to tip/x86/cleanups.
Ingo
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