Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/8] sysfs: Implement sysfs tagged directory support.

From: [email-masked] (Eric W. Biederman)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:20:05 -0700

Christoph Hellwig <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 03:27:12PM -0700, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> Al reviewed sysfs with my patchset on top of it.
>> 
>> Al's review found problems in  sysfs with my patchset on top of it.
>> 
>> If you look at what Al found the majority of those problems exist in sysfs
>> without my patches.
>
> And when something is crap your fix it firdt before piling up more shit
> on top of it.  And sysfs is a really severe case of that, and you're
> piling a _lot_ of shit ontop.

Chistoph, your comments and Al's would have been much more productive
if you have had said:

"I didn't like sysfs because it doesn't do things the way other filesystems
  with similar problems do things.  Can you please use common idioms?
  Making the code easier to read and making the code easier to maintain.
  Some of those constructs look awfully complex can you recheck you code
  and see if there is a simpler way to implement them."

That would have been honest and productive.  As it sits.  I have partially
inaccurate feedback from Al, useless feedback from you, and only my own
tough skin and determination to keep me going..

The fact that you and Al look at the code and can't easily make sense of
is a good sign that the code as written will be hard to maintain.  Al's
recent breakage of sysctl is a good example of that.

Eric