From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1764624AbYEASdT (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 14:33:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1755002AbYEASdI (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 14:33:08 -0400 Received: from elasmtp-scoter.atl.sa.earthlink.net ([209.86.89.67]:35608 "EHLO elasmtp-scoter.atl.sa.earthlink.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755070AbYEASdH (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 14:33:07 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=dk20050327; d=earthlink.net; b=ZJU6qQwai5RkFKkjPBBXw/xAcLuFtP7P5a0w5laonpALKaBOZ/nvVJsOdH1jWn7P; h=Received:Message-ID:Date:From:Reply-To:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:CC:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:X-ELNK-Trace:X-Originating-IP; Message-ID: <481A0CC3.9040006@earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:35 -0400 From: Stephen Clark Reply-To: sclark46@earthlink.net User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 (X11/20080226) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Nigel Cunningham CC: Linus Torvalds , "Rafael J. Wysocki" , Willy Tarreau , David Miller , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Jiri Slaby Subject: Re: Slow DOWN, please!!! References: <20080429.190352.137408408.davem@davemloft.net> <20080430224610.GO8474@1wt.eu> <200805010242.36775.rjw@sisk.pl> <1209609075.1271.19.camel@nigel-laptop> In-Reply-To: <1209609075.1271.19.camel@nigel-laptop> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: a437fbc6971e80f61aa676d7e74259b7b3291a7d08dfec7920417b424103b03529be9484edf8290c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c X-Originating-IP: 24.144.77.185 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Nigel Cunningham wrote: > Hi. > > On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 18:40 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: >> The thing is, the quality of individual patches isn't what matters! What >> matters is the quality of the end result. And people are going to be a lot >> more involved in looking at, testing, and working with code that is >> merged, rather than code that isn't. > > No. People generally expect that code that has been merged does work, so > they don't look at it unless they're forced to (by a bug or the desire > to make further modifications in that code) and they don't explicitly > seek to test it. They just seek to use it. > > When it doesn't work, some of us will go and seek to find the cause, > others (most?) will simply roll back to whatever they last found to be > reliable. > > Out of tree code has the same issues. > > The only time code really gets looked at and tested is when there's a > problem, or when people are explicitly choosing to inspect it (pre-merge > reviews, eg). > > So my answer to the "how do we raise quality" question would be that > when writing the code, we put time and effort into properly analysing > the problem and developing a solution, we put time and effort into > carefully testing the solution, and we put code in that will help the > end-user help us to debug issues later (without them necessarily needing > to git-bisect). After all, good software isn't the result of random (or > semi-random), unconsidered modifications, but of planning, thought and > attention to detail. > > In other words, I'm arguing that the speed of merging should be > irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the work done in the first > place. > > If you want better quality code, penalise the people who get buggy code > merged. Give them a reason to get it in a better state before they try > to merge. Of course Linus alone can't do that. > > Nigel > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > Amen! -- "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Ben Franklin) "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." (Thomas Jefferson)