Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 00:08:19 +0100
From: viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: perex@suse.cz, torvalds@osdl.org
Subject: [RFC] ASLA design, depth of code review and lack thereof
Message-ID: <20040604230819.GR12308@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1400
Lines: 36

Ladies and gentlemen, may I politely ask what description would fit somebody
who have made the following

        case SNDRV_PCM_FORMAT_FLOAT_BE:
        {
                union {
                        float f;
                        u_int32_t i;
                } u;
                u.f = 0.0;
#ifdef SNDRV_LITTLE_ENDIAN
                return bswap_32(u.i);
#else
                return u.i;
#endif
        }
and quite a few similar, er, wonders an ioctl?

That's right.  This code just has to be in the kernel.  It can't be in
a library, oh no.  It can't be a trivial macro that would result in
compiler generating the constant, no sir - it just had to be proudly
dumped into the great barfbag in the tree.

And that leads to a really interesting question: how many people had ever
read that code?  Or documentation covering that ioctl, while we are at it.

Unless I'm mistaken, ALSA used revision control for a long, long time.
Jaroslav, could you please find the origin of that little wonder and
share with the class - who had done that, why it had been committed into
ALSA tree and how did it manage to survive until the merge into the main
tree?
-
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/