From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261860AbTDQS1J (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:27:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261863AbTDQS1J (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:27:09 -0400 Received: from watch.techsource.com ([209.208.48.130]:38394 "EHLO techsource.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261860AbTDQS1I (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:27:08 -0400 Message-ID: <3E9EF729.4000101@techsource.com> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:49:13 -0400 From: Timothy Miller User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matt Mackall CC: Chuck Ebbert <76306.1226@compuserve.com>, linux-kernel Subject: Re: [PATCH] only use 48-bit lba when necessary References: <200304041203_MC3-1-3302-C615@compuserve.com> <20030417142020.GB23277@waste.org> <3E9EC71B.5000901@techsource.com> <20030417160530.GD23277@waste.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Matt Mackall wrote: > > >>> >>> >>What's ugly about them? >> >> > >It doesn't pass the test of "would I use it if I didn't think it was >faster?" > >As I pointed out, your variant is not faster with a reasonable >compiler, only less obvious. And none of this sort of optimization >will ever be measurably better in the IO path anyway. But every one of >these false optimizations is a barrier to the understanding that will >allow real cleanups to make fundamental improvements. > > > Agreed, but in this case, it's simply a matter of culture. If some of these things were more common, then they would pass the test, like the use of "!!". One thing for your side of the argument is that if something works, don't mess with it and risk breaking it, especially if it has no practical impact on performance. If we really wanted to improve readability, we could start doing something like Windows developers are so fond of doing and use Hungarian Notation. I know it's ugly, and we eschew anything to do with Microsoft, but once you get used to it, it can be very helpful in keeping things straight.