Return-path: Received: from mail-qw0-f46.google.com ([209.85.216.46]:59080 "EHLO mail-qw0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755858Ab0LJWD2 convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:03:28 -0500 Received: by qwa26 with SMTP id 26so4351860qwa.19 for ; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:03:28 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <21458014.1292018042407.JavaMail.root@elwamui-rubis.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <21458014.1292018042407.JavaMail.root@elwamui-rubis.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:03:27 +0100 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] b43: N-PHY: update init tables From: =?UTF-8?B?UmFmYcWCIE1pxYJlY2tp?= To: ikorot@earthlink.net Cc: Larry Finger , Hauke Mehrtens , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, b43-dev@lists.infradead.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: W dniu 10 grudnia 2010 22:54 użytkownik napisał: > Rafal, > > > -----Original Message----- >>From: Rafał Miłecki >>Sent: Dec 10, 2010 11:33 AM >>To: ikorot@earthlink.net >>Cc: Larry Finger , Hauke Mehrtens , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, b43-dev@lists.infradead.org >>Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] b43: N-PHY: update init tables >> >>W dniu 10 grudnia 2010 20:09 użytkownik   napisał: >>> Rafal, >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>>>From: Rafał Miłecki >>>>Sent: Dec 9, 2010 10:36 PM >>>>To: ikorot@earthlink.net >>>>Cc: Larry Finger , Hauke Mehrtens , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, b43-dev@lists.infradead.org >>>>Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] b43: N-PHY: update init tables >>>> >>>>W dniu 10 grudnia 2010 03:26 użytkownik   napisał: >>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>>From: Rafał Miłecki >>>>>>Sent: Dec 9, 2010 6:06 AM >>>>>>To: ikorot@earthlink.net >>>>>>Cc: Larry Finger , Hauke Mehrtens , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, b43-dev@lists.infradead.org >>>>>>Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] b43: N-PHY: update init tables >>>>>> >>>>>>2010/12/8  : >>>>>>> Larry, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>>>>From: Larry Finger >>>>>>>>Sent: Dec 7, 2010 12:00 PM >>>>>>>>To: ikorot@earthlink.net >>>>>>>>Cc: Hauke Mehrtens , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, b43-dev@lists.infradead.org >>>>>>>>Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] b43: N-PHY: update init tables >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>On 12/07/2010 01:49 PM, ikorot@earthlink.net wrote: >>>>>>>>>> One reason is that these tables changed from non-zero to zero values between >>>>>>>>>> Broadcom driver 4.174.64.19 and 5.10.56.46. As they might change again, I think >>>>>>>>>> we should retain the full version. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Is there a way to check for version of the driver? >>>>>>>>> This way whoever uses old one won't be screwed... >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>That will not be a problem as no older version of b43 works at all with b43. To >>>>>>>>help you understand this change, when the 4.174.64.19 Broadcom driver was >>>>>>>>reverse-engineered, the tables had non-zero values. Rafel later compared the >>>>>>>>trace dumps of b43 with the latest version of wl and found that the values are >>>>>>>>now zero. When I rechecked driver 5.10.56.46, I found them to be zero there as >>>>>>>>well and changed the specs. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Well, it maybe feasible to keep the old values and check >>>>>>> the version of the driver, since you are saying yourself >>>>>>> that the value might be changing in the future. >>>>>>> Maybe for couple of releases only? >>>>>> >>>>>>Sorry, but I don't understand that at all. What do you mean by version >>>>>>of the driver? What driver? >>>>> >>>>> #if B43_VERSION <= x.x.x.x >>>>> // table initialized to some values >>>>> #else >>>>> //table initialized to 0's >>>>> #endif >>>> >>>>You want to put condition checking b43 version in... b43 driver? I >>>>can't follow you. >>> >>> Yes. >>> And what you can't follow? >>> >>> For historical purposes and to better understand the changes and ease the >>> debugging I proposed this addition. >>> Besides if for some reason in future versions Broadcom will decide to return to >>> the same values for init tables, the changes will be very simple. >> >>So I guess you meant using "#if 0" for commenting old values? >> >>I guess we could do that instead deleting old values, but fortunately >>it's git so we always can browse history and restore old values >>without problems :) > > Well, after 5 or 6 month will you remember the commit that introduced > the change? > Yes, you can browse the history, but it will be an extra effort to find > it. > > I understand that the code will be bigger in size, but if it takes > just adding 2 lines of code comparing to looking thru history and > then copying the values to sources. Yeah, that's the minus of that solution. However wl changes it's operations in many places, we would get unreadable code while keeping old code commented out. It's matter what do you find more important. Maintainable code or browsing through old changes when reverting something. With git you can easily checkout old revision, browse history of selected file, bisect and do other tricks. In that situation I decided to have easy maintainable code. You could still argue to have commented code in tables and remove old code in init... but that would lead to real chaos. So I'm really for keeping the current way for that. -- Rafał