From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: From: David Howells In-Reply-To: <1134559121.25663.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1134559121.25663.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> <13820.1134558138@warthog.cambridge.redhat.com> <20051213143147.d2a57fb3.pj@sgi.com> <20051213094053.33284360.pj@sgi.com> <20051212161944.3185a3f9.akpm@osdl.org> <20051213075441.GB6765@elte.hu> <20051213090219.GA27857@infradead.org> <20051213093949.GC26097@elte.hu> <20051213100015.GA32194@elte.hu> <6281.1134498864@warthog.cambridge.redhat.com> <14242.1134558772@warthog.cambridge.redhat.com> Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/19] MUTEX: Introduce simple mutex implementation Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 12:35:07 +0000 Message-ID: <16315.1134563707@warthog.cambridge.redhat.com> Sender: dhowells@redhat.com To: Alan Cox Cc: David Howells , Paul Jackson , mingo@elte.hu, hch@infradead.org, akpm@osdl.org, torvalds@osdl.org, arjan@infradead.org, matthew@wil.cx, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Alan Cox wrote: > Why bother. As has already been discussed up and down are the natural > and normal names for counting semaphores. You don't need to obsolete the > old API thats just silly, you need to add a new one and wait for people > to use it. The vast majority of ups and downs are actually mutex related not semaphore related, so by majority share, up/down perhaps ought to be repurposed to mutexes: they _are_ the preeminent uses. >From my modified tree, I see: semaphore up down down_in down_try Counting 41 59 1 0 Mutex 4405 2824 362 107 > The old API is still very useful for some applications that want > counting semaphores. Whilst that is true, they're in a small minority, and it'd be easier to change them. David