Re: [PATCH] v4 RCU: the bloatwatch edition

Andrew Morton
2009-05-06T19:26:47Z

On Wed, 6 May 2009 12:02:16 -0700
"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> > > i'm wondering what Andrew thinks - he had objections, right?
> > >
> >
> > More like "concerns". It's unobvious to me that the modest .text
> > savings justify the costs of an additional RCU implementation. Where
> > those costs include
> >
> > - additional maintenance work and
> >
> > - the reduced code reliability which comes from fragmenting the
> > tester base. This will mostly affect users of the less popular RCU
> > implementations.
> >
> > But hey, maybe I'm wrong. And maybe I'm right, but we'll merge it anyway ;)
>
> ;-)
>
> How about if acceptance of Tiny RCU happens at the same time as Classic
> RCU is dropped? That would be a large net decrease in code size and
> complexity.

It's a bit artificial to link the two actions. Removing something:
good. Adding something: bad. good+bad == less good ;)