Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932324AbVLAQwA (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:52:00 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932331AbVLAQwA (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:52:00 -0500 Received: from caramon.arm.linux.org.uk ([212.18.232.186]:16653 "EHLO caramon.arm.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932324AbVLAQwA (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:52:00 -0500 Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 16:51:44 +0000 From: Russell King To: ray-gmail@madrabbit.org, Roman Zippel Cc: Kyle Moffett , Thomas Gleixner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@osdl.org, mingo@elte.hu, george@mvista.com, johnstul@us.ibm.com Subject: Re: [patch 00/43] ktimer reworked Message-ID: <20051201165144.GC31551@flint.arm.linux.org.uk> Mail-Followup-To: ray-gmail@madrabbit.org, Roman Zippel , Kyle Moffett , Thomas Gleixner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@osdl.org, mingo@elte.hu, george@mvista.com, johnstul@us.ibm.com References: <1133395019.32542.443.camel@tglx.tec.linutronix.de> <23CA09D3-4C11-4A4B-A5C6-3C38FA9C203D@mac.com> <2c0942db0512010822x1ae20622obf224ce9728e83f8@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <2c0942db0512010822x1ae20622obf224ce9728e83f8@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1962 Lines: 46 On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 08:22:01AM -0800, Ray Lee wrote: > On 12/1/05, Roman Zippel wrote: > > The human language is a bit more complicated than this (at least English > > and related languages). Depending on the context a word can have different > > meanings, e.g. if you ask an athlete what "timeout" means, you'll get a > > different answer than you would get from an engineer. > > Actually, no you won't. The athlete will say "A timeout? Something out > of the ordinary happened, and coach wants me to go to the sidelines to > talk." Timeouts are unexpected and exceptional, whether you're an > athlete or a piece of code. On the other hand, they have a timer that > everyone *expects* to expire at the end of the quarter or game. > > Ray, who is both an athlete and a native English speaker, who thinks > the naming is the clearest of anything to come across this list in > ages. rmk, also a native English speaker, agrees with Ray, Thomas and Ingo. As does dictionary.reference.com's definitions of timeout and timer: timeout A period of time after which an error condition is raised if some event has not occured. A common example is sending a message. If the receiver does not acknowledge the message within some preset timeout period, a transmission error is assumed to have occured. timer a timepiece that measures a time interval and signals its end Hence, timers have the implication that they are _expected_ to expire. Timeouts have the implication that their expiry is an exceptional condition. So can we stop rehashing this stupid discussion? -- Russell King Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/ maintainer of: 2.6 Serial core - 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/