Re: linux-next: build warning in Linus'tree

[Linus Torvalds]

On Wed, 26 May 2010, Joakim Tjernlund wrote:
> >
> > So no. The glibc model is _not_ any better in practice.
> 
> In the kernel it is since it breaks the compile. The breakage
> my patch introduced is a sign of that, right?

In the kernel it is _worse_, because it breaks all the years and years of 
code we have. 

The thing is, "reality" > "theory".

Besides, the kernel model is a lot denser, more straightforward, and in my 
opinion much less likely to cause problems due to having just two clear 
identifiers rather than that extraneous and useless __BYTE_ORDER one.

So even in theory, I don't agree. It's not like we've really had problems 
with our model.

> hmm, so then I guess the existing use of __BYTE_ORDER in the
> kernel should be removed?

Yes. Except in the places where it exists solely due to user-space header 
exporting (and there it generally is a big hint that something is wrong 
anyway, as mentioned). From my quick grep (read: "not verified") there's a 
couple of files like that.

It's probably not worth trying to change (one of them is about 
__BIG_ENDIAN_BITFIELD, which is due to people using bitfields for 
transferring data. That _is_ misdesigned. Bitfield ordering is even less 
well defined than byte order, and if you have to use those bitfield 
ordering things, it's almost always a sign that you shouldn't have used 
bitfields, and used explicit shifts-and-masks instead)

		Linus
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