Re: [Patch] asm workarounds in generic header files

[Jes Sorensen <jes@wildopensource.com>]

>>>>> "Suresh" == Siddha, Suresh B <suresh.b.siddha@intel.com> writes:

Suresh> We believe that we are trying to improve the code by
Suresh> localizing the compiler issues (including the ones for gcc3
Suresh> and Intel complier) and by introducing use of compiler
Suresh> intrinsics (e.g. for barrier()).

Hi Suresh,

I actually think this is degrading the code rather then improving
it. Right now the various macros are located in the include/asm-<foo>
directory next to the items where they are used. Moving it all into
one big catch-all assembly file makes it a lot harder to read things
and debug the code. I already took a look at the changes that went
into the ia64 part of the tree and I really think that was a step
backwards.

In terms of compiling the Linux kernel, I will argue that the Intel
compiler is broken if it cannot handle inline assembly. Inline
assembly is just too fundamental a feature for the kernel. This is
totally ignoring the question of whether one should be compiling the
kernel with non-GCC in the first place.

Regards,
Jes