Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:12:46 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:11:30 -0500 Received: from dsl254-112-233.nyc1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([216.254.112.233]:22708 "EHLO snark.thyrsus.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:10:56 -0500 Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:03:05 -0500 From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Christoph Hellwig , Keith Owens , kbuild-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, torvalds@transmeta.com Subject: Re: [kbuild-devel] Converting the 2.5 kernel to kbuild 2.5 Message-ID: <20011204120305.A16578@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com Mail-Followup-To: "Eric S. Raymond" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Christoph Hellwig , Keith Owens , kbuild-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, torvalds@transmeta.com In-Reply-To: <1861.1007341572@kao2.melbourne.sgi.com> <20011204131136.B6051@caldera.de> <20011204072808.A11867@thyrsus.com> <20011204133932.A8805@caldera.de> <20011204074815.A12231@thyrsus.com> <20011204140050.A10691@caldera.de> <20011204081640.A12658@thyrsus.com> <20011204142958.A14069@caldera.de> <20011204173309.A10746@emma1.emma.line.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011204173309.A10746@emma1.emma.line.org>; from matthias.andree@stud.uni-dortmund.de on Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 05:33:09PM +0100 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Matthias Andree : > Seriously: what do you fear? Losing the efforts you put into mconfig? > Linux 2.2 and 2.4 will be around for quite some time (not sure about > mconfig on 2.0, I don't use 2.0.x ATM). Oops. I wasn't going to tell anyone this yet, but since you've made this argument I feel I must be up front here.... After CML2 has proven itself in 2.5, I do plan to go back to Marcelo and lobby for him accepting it into 2.4, on the grounds that doing so will simplify his maintainance task no end. That's why I'm tracking both sides of the fork in the rulebase, so it will be an easy drop-in replacement for Marcelo as well as Linus. > What are the precise issues with Python? Just claiming it is an issue is > not useful for discussing this. Archive pointers are welcome. The issues can be divided into two groups: silly and serious. The representative silly objection was "Python is evil because significant whitespace sucks!". Cristoph's objection to the use of a binary pickle as an intermediate format is in this category also. I heard two serious objections: (1) The overhead of learning a new config language is too high. (2) Requiring Python introduces another tool into the requisites list for kernel building. As to (1), the very people who maintained the in-kernel CML1 tools judged that the overhead of sticking with what they wrote was forseeably going to be higher than that of putting a new language in place. Otherwise they would not have encouraged me to replace it when I offered. As to (2), I could make all kinds of elaborate defensive technical arguments, or I could point at Greg Bank's CML2-in-C project, but screw that. I'm just going to say "Today's problems, today's tools." Progress happens. If you don't like it, feel free to go back to writing Autocoder on your 1401. -- Eric S. Raymond "The state calls its own violence `law', but that of the individual `crime'" -- Max Stirner - 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/