Re: [PATCH] Whine about suspicious return values from module's ->init() hook

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 09:48:10 +1100
Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> wrote:

> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 17:24:57 Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 17:08:37 +1100 Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> 
> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 05 February 2008 14:53:18 Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > That risks killing previously-working setups.  WARN_ON is sufficient.
> > >
> > > I disagree.  WARN_ON is useful for developers, but they can handle
> > > BUG_ON, too.
> >
> > For developers, BUG_ON has zero benefit relative to WARN_ON.
> >
> > For non-developers, BUG_ON has large disadvantages relative to WARN_ON.
> >
> > It's a no-brainer.
> 
> For non-developers, WARN_ON is a noop.

Oh..  Rusty.  The mailing list and bugzilla are *full* of WARN_ON reports
from testers.  Your statement is empirically wrong.

> For developers, WARN_ON is often a noop.

And from developers.

> BUG_ON() will make us fix it in return for short-term pain.

Pain to our users and testers.  People upon whom we are very dependent and
to whom we are hugely indebted.  People who I have to spend a lot of time
defending from the likes of you!

>  WARN_ON() wont, 
> in return for less pain.  It's mildly better than nothing, but not worth the 
> patch.