Linux Kernel 2.6.23 To Have Stable Userspace Driver API
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 22nd Jul 2007 00:33 UTC, submitted by liquidat
Linux Linus Torvalds included patches into the mainline tree which implement a stable userspace driver API into the Linux kernel. The stable driver API was already announced a year ago by Greg Kroah-Hartman. Now the last patches were uploaded and the API was included in Linus' tree. The idea of the API is to make life easier for driver developers: "This interface allows the ability to write the majority of a driver in userspace with only a very small shell of a driver in the kernel itself. It uses a char device and sysfs to interact with a userspace process to process interrupts and control memory accesses."
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RE[4]: I wonder...
by bnolsen on Sun 22nd Jul 2007 02:59 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: I wonder..."
bnolsen
Member since:
2006-01-06

Umm...that mentality has big problems....nothing gets produced or an over engineered POS is designed.

Tere's always compromises to be made.

And there's a lot to be said about getting something out there that people can chew on and give you feedback on instead of just sitting around a table talking.

Reply Parent Score: 4

RE[5]: I wonder...
by kaiwai on Sun 22nd Jul 2007 04:36 in reply to "RE[4]: I wonder..."
kaiwai Member since:
2005-07-06

Umm...that mentality has big problems....nothing gets produced or an over engineered POS is designed.

There's always compromises to be made.

And there's a lot to be said about getting something out there that people can chew on and give you feedback on instead of just sitting around a table talking.


Oh, come on. The above is the equivalent of invading Iraq and failing to do the research before hand - now look what has happened.

Same thing if you don't investigate, document and design - you end up with a giant cluster f--k that becomes so hacked, so badly managed you're forced to chuck out the whole thing and replace it - thus costing money, thus very inefficient.

If things are properly documented, properly designed, they can be maintained for the long term rather than the short term gratification of the programmer in question.

If Linux developers and users want to get it as a viable desktop operating system, the above approach is completely ridiculous; simply throwing things out every couple of months or years because someone didn't do their homework.

Write a program, and do it right the first time.

Reply Parent Score: 5

RE[6]: I wonder...
by henrikmk on Sun 22nd Jul 2007 09:06 in reply to "RE[5]: I wonder..."
henrikmk Member since:
2005-07-10

bnolsen: And there's a lot to be said about getting something out there that people can chew on and give you feedback on instead of just sitting around a table talking.

Kaiwai: Oh, come on. The above is the equivalent of invading Iraq and failing to do the research before hand - now look what has happened.


Now, if the Iraqi invasion was prototyped first... :-)

Seriously, after getting stuck in crap code, I've had enough of the "code first and ask questions later" approach. I never had a formal education in real program design, so I don't know all the fancy theories, but it can't be that hard to see that leaving out planning is going to backfire in major and unexpected ways later, causing countless lost hours of creating workarounds to rushed or badly planned code.

Creating prototypes, whenever you can, is the best kind of feedback, I think, but it probably also depends on the context in which you are designing your stuff and how experienced you are in the matter.
I use an iterative approach, and if I have to do 10 prototypes before moving on and putting it into live production code, I'll do that, because I'm pretty sure that the 10th prototype will pay off later.

Reply Parent Score: 2

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