From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36089) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bn0AW-00061R-A5 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:19:49 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bn0AS-0002BD-0f for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:19:47 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:57504) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bn0AR-0002Aw-Qg for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:19:43 -0400 From: Markus Armbruster References: <877fa5aiu4.fsf@dusky.pond.sub.org> <6373e011-5068-b0ae-5672-e3704af556d9@redhat.com> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:19:41 +0200 In-Reply-To: <6373e011-5068-b0ae-5672-e3704af556d9@redhat.com> (Paolo Bonzini's message of "Wed, 21 Sep 2016 17:53:29 +0200") Message-ID: <87h998nvf6.fsf@dusky.pond.sub.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v11 0/8] Add a generic loader List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Paolo Bonzini Cc: Alistair Francis , Peter Maydell , Peter Crosthwaite , "qemu-devel@nongnu.org Developers" , Christopher Covington Paolo Bonzini writes: > On 21/09/2016 17:46, Alistair Francis wrote: >>> > I know it's way too late for design questions, but the thought just >>> > occured to me: -device gives you what you need without defining yet >>> > another command line option (good!), but is it appropriate? It's not >>> > exactly a device... Would -object be a better fit? I honestly don't >>> > know. Paolo? >> I see your point, but I kind of think it makes sense that everything >> uses the same command line argument. >> >> I image it would be very confusing if we have -device and -object. >> Then when you want to add something you will need to figure out if it >> is a device or an object? How do you know which one is which? >> >> I agree that technically it isn't a device but I think this is still >> clear what you are trying to do. > > I think -device is okay for something that isn't a "backend" but is > directly guest-visible. Well, the contents of a block device is just as guest-visible. We split the device in a frontend and a backend, and the contents comes from the backend. We traditionally don't model memory as a split device. Perhaps we should. Regardless of whether we actually do, "contents of a memory device that you need to create by some other means (explicit or implicit)" feels much more like -object than like -device to me.