Re: I request inclusion of reiser4 in the mainline kernel

Hans Reiser
2005-09-20T06:28:16Z

Nick Piggin wrote:

> Hans Reiser wrote:
>
>> So why is the code in the kernel so hard to read then?
>>
>> Linux kernel code is getting better, and Andrew Morton's code is
>> especially good, but for the most part it's unnecessarily hard to
>> read. Look at the elevator code for instance. Ugh.
>>
>>
>
> What's wrong with the elevator code?
>
The name for one. There is no elevator algorithm anywhere in it. There
is a least block number first algorithm that was called an elevator, but
it does not have the properties described by Ousterhout and sundry CS
textbooks describing elevator algorithms. The textbook algorithms are
better than least block number first, and it is interesting how nobody
fixed the mislabeling of the algorithm once Linux had gotten to the
point that it was striving for more than making gcc be able to run on it.

cfq is good code though for many usage patterns.

I would say more, but I need to talk a customer into ok'ing releasing
some code first, so I can only say what I knew before doing the work for
that customer at this time.

If you would like many more details of coding/commenting inelegance, ask
Nate Diller after the customer oks his talking about it, which will
happen more easily if we say nothing that we did not know before the
work for them until we first get their ok.....

Hans