Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:53:00 +0200
From: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>
To: petkovbb@gmail.com
Cc: Robert Hancock <hancockr@shaw.ca>,
       Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier@gmail.com>,
       linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] ide: locking improvements
Message-ID: <20081011135300.GP19428@kernel.dk>
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On Sat, Oct 11 2008, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > >From my perspective the main gain of these patches is the increased
> > maintainability and sanity of the code, scalability improvements are
> > just an added bonus.
> 
> and better code/improved scalability is a bad thing because... ?!

It's a bad thing because nobody on earth cares about IDE scalability,
from a performance POV a modern SATA controller is just better on
several levels. I don't think anybody cares about IDE scaling on 8-16
cores or more, simply because NOBODY is using IDE on such systems.

As such, trying to improve locking is a pointless exercise. And that is
a bad thing, because code change invariably brings in code bugs. Then
see previous mail on lack of coverage testing, and it can naturally be
harmful.

> > > rather like putting makeup on a corpse to me..
> 
> so _NOT_ true.

Depends on what you think is the corpse. Since IDE is essentially dead
and frozen, it IS a corpse and the phrase is then very appropriate. This
is not a personal jab at the IDE guys and does not reflect on the
(mostly) good work they do, just a reflection on the state of IDE in
general.

-- 
Jens Axboe

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