Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932421AbVI3Afj (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:35:39 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932419AbVI3Afj (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:35:39 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:10394 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932415AbVI3Afi (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:35:38 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 17:35:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Luben Tuikov cc: Arjan van de Ven , Willy Tarreau , SCSI Mailing List , Andrew Morton , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Luben Tuikov , Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: I request inclusion of SAS Transport Layer and AIC-94xx into the kernel In-Reply-To: <20050929232013.95117.qmail@web31810.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: References: <20050929232013.95117.qmail@web31810.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1574 Lines: 45 On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Luben Tuikov wrote: > > > It's like real science: if you have a theory that doesn't match > > experiments, it doesn't matter _how_ much you like that theory. It's > > wrong. You can use it as an approximation, but you MUST keep in mind > > that it's an approximation. > > But this is _the_ definition of a theory. No one is arguing that > a theory is not an approximation to observed behaviour. No. A scientific theory is an approximation of observed behaviour WITH NO KNOWN HOLES. Once there are known holes in the theory, it's not a scientific theory. At best it's an approximation, but quite possibly it's just plain wrong. And that's my point. Specs are not only almost invariably badly written, they also never actually match reality. At which point at _best_ it's just an approximation. At worst, it's much worse. At worst, it causes people to ignore reality, and then it becomes religion. And that's way _way_ too common. People who ignore reality are sadly not at all unusual. "But the spec says ..." is pretty much always a sign of somebody who has just blocked out the fact that some device doesn't. So don't talk about specs. Talk about working code that is _readable_ and _works_. There's an absolutely mindbogglingly huge difference between the two. Linus - 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/