From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262427AbTJAOtd (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:49:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262429AbTJAOtd (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:49:33 -0400 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:34963 "EHLO www.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262427AbTJAOta (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:49:30 -0400 Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 15:49:29 +0100 From: Matthew Wilcox To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rn?= Engel Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, Dave Jones , Matthew Wilcox , Linus Torvalds , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] CONFIG_* In Comments Considered Harmful Message-ID: <20031001144929.GP24824@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> References: <20031001132619.GL24824@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <20031001141950.GA13115@redhat.com> <200310011429.h91ETtcG009923@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> <20031001144223.GJ31698@wohnheim.fh-wedel.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20031001144223.GJ31698@wohnheim.fh-wedel.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 04:42:23PM +0200, Jörn Engel wrote: > On Wed, 1 October 2003 10:29:55 -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > > On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 15:19:52 BST, Dave Jones said: > > > > > Maybe it should be taught to parse comments? There are zillions of > > > #endif /* CONFIG_FOO */ > > > braces in the tree. Why is this one special ? > > > > I think it's because it looked like: > > > > #ifdef CONFIG_FOO > > .... > > #endif /* CONFIG_FOO or CONFIG_BAR */ > > > > and it concluded there was a dependency on BAR. > > Or rather like this: > > #ifdef CONFIG_FOO > ... > #endif /* CONFIG_FO */ > > Problem is that we humans correct the type before it even reaches our > conciousness. Machines don't do that yet. But it used to look like #ifdef BAR || BAZ ... #endif /* BAR || BAZ */ now it looks like #ifdef BAZ ... #endif /* BAR || BAZ */ if you can't trust people to keep comments up to date, delete the comments. No comments are better than wrong comments. Remember the classic? /* Keep these two variables together */ int bar; -- "It's not Hollywood. War is real, war is primarily not about defeat or victory, it is about death. I've seen thousands and thousands of dead bodies. Do you think I want to have an academic debate on this subject?" -- Robert Fisk