Re: Coding style: mixed-case

From: Nick Piggin (nickpiggin_at_yahoo.com.au)
Date: 04/06/05

  • Next message: Jörn Engel: "Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice." 
    Date:	Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:01:56 +1000
To: Kenneth Aafløy <lists@kenneth.aafloy.net>

    Kenneth Aafløy wrote:
    > On Wednesday 06 April 2005 04:09, Matt Mackall wrote:
    >
    >>While there may be reasons why mixed case is suboptimal, the real
    >>reason is that it's hard to keep track of which style is used where.
    >>It's annoying and error-prone to have to remember the naming format
    >>for everything in addition to its name. As most things are in a
    >>standard style, things are made easier by having every piece of new
    >>code follow that style and let us slowly approach uniformity.
    >
    >
    > My primary concern was that of; why does the kernels own coding style
    > deviate from that advise given in it's documentation. Other than that

    Probably it's been like that for a long time, and nobody has
    really bothered to change it.

    >>If you posted a patch for pf_locked() and friends (and note that it's
    >>lowercase to match function-like usage), you'd probably find some
    >>enthusiasts and some naysayers. Most of the naysayers would object on
    >>the grounds of "it ain't broke", but if someone were to do it as part
    >>of a series of more substantial clean-ups, it'd likely be accepted.
    >
    >
    > Certainly I would like to have a go at a patch, but I must say that I do not
    > feel particularly familiar with the code in question to make such a change.
    > I would have risen to the challenge had this been a driver level change,
    > but the mmu is something that I will not touch untill I feel comfortable.

    Well the only patch that could possibly be considered would be a
    straight search and replace, and absolutely no functional changes;
    I think you would be up to it ;)

    A few suggestions:
    Don't use PF_*. That namespace is already being used by at least
    process flags and protocol flags. Maybe page_locked, page_dirty,
    etc. might be better

    There could be a quite a bit of external code using these interfaces.
    Typically we wouldn't just rename public interfaces in a stable
    series "just because", but the rules are a bit different for 2.6.

    Your best bet would be to firstly do a patch to create the new interface
    names but keep the old ones in place for backwards compatibility (just
    #defined to the new name), then a second patch to convert over all the
    in-kernel users. The compatibility stuff can be removed in N years.

    Lastly, it is quite likely that many people will consider this to be
    more trouble than it's worth. So keep in mind it is not guaranteed to
    get included. 

    -- 
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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