Re: [PATCH 3/3] x86: OLPC: speed up device tree creation during boot (v2)

[Andres Salomon <dilinger@queued.net>]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:48:59 -0800
"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:

> On 11/18/2010 09:41 AM, Andres Salomon wrote:
> >>
> >> No, sorry, this sounds like a personal preference that is well out
> >> of line with the vast majority of C programmers I've ever come
> >> across, not just in the Linux kernel world but outside of it.
> > 
> > 
> > This is actually one of the reasons I specifically like initialized
> > static variables (inside of functions).  Take the following code:
> > 
> > int foo(void)
> > {
> > 	static char *frob = NULL;
> > 	int p;
> > 
> > 	if (frob) {
> > 		...
> > 	}
> > 
> > 
> > Upon seeing that and thinking "whoa, how could frob be
> > initialized and then checked?", I realize that it's either a bug or
> > I look back at the initialization and realize that frob is static.
> > It's less obvious (to me) with non-explicit initialization.
> 
> I have to agree with this one.  In general I dislike relying on an
> implicit (even well-defined) initialized value; unfortunately we
> ripped out explicit initializations across the Linux kernel, not due
> to readability but due to the fact that long-since-obsolete versions
> of gcc would put explicitly-initialized variables in data rather than
> bss even if the initial value is zero.
> 
> 	-hpa
> 
> 

Note that I sent another update for this patch the other day
(Tuesday).  It uses implicit initialization.  Some Acks would be
awesome if folks are happy w/ the way I've done things..  ;)