Re: [PATCH 1/19] MUTEX: Introduce simple mutex implementation

David Howells
2005-12-14T12:35:37Z

Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

> Why bother. As has already been discussed up and down are the natural
> and normal names for counting semaphores. You don't need to obsolete the
> old API thats just silly, you need to add a new one and wait for people
> to use it.

The vast majority of ups and downs are actually mutex related not semaphore
related, so by majority share, up/down perhaps ought to be repurposed to
mutexes: they _are_ the preeminent uses.

>From my modified tree, I see:

semaphore up down down_in down_try
Counting 41 59 1 0
Mutex 4405 2824 362 107

> The old API is still very useful for some applications that want
> counting semaphores.

Whilst that is true, they're in a small minority, and it'd be easier to change
them.

David