Re: IDE?

From: Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Date: Sat Aug 17 2002 - 15:04:15 EST


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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