Re: [Announce] Emulex LightPulse Device Driver

[Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>]

Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> wrote:
> Flag problem on sparc is fixed by Keith Wesolowsky for 2.6.3-rcX,
> and it never existed on sparc64, which keeps CWP in a separate register.
> 
> Why it took years to resolve is that the expirience showed that
> there is no legitimate reason to pass flags as arguments. Every damn
> time it was done, the author was being stupid. Keith resolved it
> primarily because it was an unorthogonality in sparc implementation.

You would never know there were so many sparc people, until I post 
something incorrect about it.  <grin>

I stand corrected.  As someone mentioned in private, it's actually a 
shame that was fixed, since that's one less argument that can be used 
against such wrappers ;-)


>>But this bug is only an example that serves to highlight the importance 
>>of directly using Linux API functions throughout your code.  It may 
>>sound redundant, but "Linux code should look like Linux code."  This 
>>emphasis on style may sound trivial, but it's important for 
>>review-ability, long term maintenance, and as we see here, bug prevention.
> 
> 
> Yes yes yes. This is the way elx_sli_lock is harmful, not because
> of its passing flags.

Agreed.

	Jeff