From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (snark.tuxedo.org [207.106.50.26]) by dsl2.external.hp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D54C1482A for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 18:37:56 -0600 (MDT) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 20:37:00 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: Alan Cox Cc: David Woodhouse , Nicolas Pitre , Tom Rini , "Albert D. Cahalan" , Matthew Wilcox , james rich , lkml , parisc-linux@parisc-linux.org Subject: Re: [parisc-linux] Re: OK, let's try cleaning up another nit. Is anyone paying attention? Message-ID: <20010420203700.E21392@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com References: <20010420173514.A21392@thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: ; from alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk on Fri, Apr 20, 2001 at 11:53:44PM +0100 List-ID: Alan Cox : > > Even supposing that's so, a 36% rate of broken symbols is way too high. > > It argues that we need to do a thorough housecleaning at least once in > > order to get back to an acceptably low stable rate. > > Many of your 'broken' symbols arent. We have no idea what the real amount is If it can't be mechanically verified that the symbol has a correct reference pattern within the tree, then it's broken. That's a definition. The fact that it might become un-broken someday, by somebody's intention to merge in future code, is interesting but irrelevant to the fact that symbols broken in present time *mask bugs* in present time. I'm not being a compulsive neatnik -- that wouldn't be worth my time. What I'm trying to do is reduce the number of crevices in which bugs can hide. -- Eric S. Raymond This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. -- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.