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Subject: Re: IDE?
From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>,
       Marc-Christian Petersen <m.c.p@wolk-project.de>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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On Sat, 2002-08-17 at 01:09, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > I actually don't think it's the people as much as it is the ridiculous 
> > linkages inside ide.c and the hugely complicated rules. The code is messy.
> 
> So of all the people you know floating around in "active hacker" state, who
> seems like the sort of person who could handle this mess?  If there is no
> person, is there a description which is more specific than "wanted: person
> who wants thankless abusive non-payed job to clean up what is inherently a
> mess"?  

IMHO you need
	-	An understanding of ATA (which is the protocol
		equivalent of object oriented cobol)
	-	The ability to work with vendors (it needs to be someone
		at a company because many vendors won't NDA with 
		individuals even if they are happy with GPL code off 
		their data sheet)
	-	Someone who has taste in code and understands how to
		beat code into shape without breaking it
	-	The ability to deduce the other errata the vendor forgot
		to tell you about or doesn't want to admit exists for 
		fear of US lawsuits (I kid you not)
	-	A good understanding of the block layer and its locking
		especially because IDE has a heirarchy of contention 
		problems:
			two drives one bus
			two channels one DMA engine
			two controllers one I/O at a time
			ISA IRQ sharing locks


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