Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:35:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
To: yodaiken@fsmlabs.com
cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [2.4.17/18pre] VM and swap - it's really unusable
In-Reply-To: <20020121084344.A13455@hq.fsmlabs.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1020121151224.23079A-100000@gatekeeper.tmr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org

On Mon, 21 Jan 2002 yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:

> I think of "benefit", perhaps naiively, in terms of something that can
> be measured or demonstrated rather than just announced.

I guess there are people who assume that anything which can't be given a
number doesn't matter or possible doesn't exist. If software can't come up
with a number for the beauty of a sunset, cuteness of a baby, or taste of
a good wine, then obviously all that subjective stuff is meaningless.

However, since we have art, food, and wine critics making a living giving
their meaningless opinions, I guess the majority of us recognize that even
without a number produced by a benchmark there is "subjectively better." I
don't know of anyone who doesn't feel that the rmap patches, even with
some admited imprefections, make the system more responsive. I haven't
seen one person who questioned this after trying it.

Explaining responsiveness is like describing color to a blind person, any
quantifications totally miss the experience.

There are some responsemarks which may or may not be useful, feel free to
actually locate and run these and post the results instead of posting
multiple ways to ask for quantification. Linux people work on the things
that interest them, and most of us can tell a pea from a bowling ball
without a caliper.

Consider this a response to your other notes of similar nature.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.

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