Re: [PATCH] net/, drivers/net/ , missing EXPERIMENTAL in menus

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007, Jeff Garzik wrote:

> Robert P. J. Day wrote:

> > i'm sure i'm going to get shouted down here, but i really disagree
> > with "BROKEN" being considered a "maturity level".  IMHO, things
> > like EXPERIMENTAL, DEPRECATED and OBSOLETE represent maturity
> > levels, for what i think are obvious reasons.
> >
> > something like BROKEN, though, has *nothing* to do with maturity.
> > a feature can be any of those maturity levels, and simultaneously
> > be BROKEN.  i consider BROKEN to be what i call a "status", and
> > different status levels might be the default of normal, or
> > KIND_OF_FLAKY or TOTALLY_BORKED -- that's where BROKEN would fit
> > in.
>
> BROKEN is definitely a maturity level.

no.  it's not.  end of discussion.  you're wrong.

the concept of "maturity level" reflects where in the life cycle some
feature is.  it will typically start as "bleeding edge" or
"experimental" or something like that, eventually stabilize to be
normal (which would be the obvious default), after which, when its
value starts to run out and it begins showing its age, it becomes
"deprecated" and eventually "obsolete"  it's a natural and obvious
progression.

on the other hand, a feature can be "broken" at *any* point in that
life cycle -- that's why it is absolutely *not* a maturity level.
please don't fight with me on this, jeff.  you're simply wrong.

> In contrast, OBSOLETE and DEPRECATED reflect high-level status not
> code quality/maturity.

you have this so backwards, i can't begin to think how to explain it
to you.

rday
-- 
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

http://crashcourse.ca
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