*BSD News Article 33891


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From: imp@boulder.parcplace.com (Warner Losh)
Subject: Re: source of TCP/IP (was I hope this wont ignite a major flame ...)
Message-ID: <Cu2oow.JHn@boulder.parcplace.com>
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Organization: ParcPlace Boulder
References: <31od8d$15l@fw.novatel.ca> <31pc9l$ctp@oscar.agcs.com> <Cu0L6w.Ms1@calcite.rhyolite.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 17:31:42 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <Cu0L6w.Ms1@calcite.rhyolite.com> vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com
(Vernon Schryver) writes: 
>If you had any significant professional experience, you'd know that is
>"horse pucky."  In real life, you often, probably usually do not have
>the manual when you need to make a fix.  You usually must write drivers
>based on the wrong manual and sometimes no manual at all.  (Spare me
>your claims of professional competance.  I've earning my living at this
>for more than 25 years.)  I'm not one of those who think that all hex
>numbers need #define's; a value that's used only once need only be
>commented.

There's a big difference between code that humans can read, and code
that requires mutants to read.  The code that Vernon quoted is an
example of code that mutants read.  They may be very good mutants and
can make anything work, but many people hate that kind of code.  I
don't have the 25 years that Vernon has (I have only 5 years out of
school, and 10 more before that), but it is completely unreasonable to
expect people to have the hardware manual to read a device driver, or
whatever piece of code you have handy.  What if I wanted to port the
driver to FreeBSD or MS-DOS or Impix?  I'd have to get my hands on the
hardware manual to tell those places that used hex numbers that are
specific to Linux and those that are specific to the card.

Linux does a great job at what it does, but some parts of it are icky
to look at.  Kinda like the plumbing in my house.

Warner
-- 
Warner Losh		imp@boulder.parcplace.COM	ParcPlace Boulder
"... but I can't promote you to "Prima Donna" unless you demonstrate a few
 more serious personality disorders"