Re: [PATCH 3/4] ndctl: switch to tools/include/linux/{kernel, list, bitmap}.h

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Wed Jul 26 2017 - 07:29:45 EST



* Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 4:55 PM, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo
> <acme@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Em Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 03:36:26PM -0700, Dan Williams escreveu:
> >> Replace the ccan implementation of list primitives, bitmap helpers and
> >> small utility macros with the common definitions available in
> >> tool/include/linux.
> >
> > You should first add what you need in separate patches, paving the way
> > to then use it, and some stuff are already there, see below:
>
> Ok, I'll break out those changes separately.

BTW., another general observation I have is that ndctl uses autotools - while perf
uses its own build system, some of which is abstracted out into tools/build/ and
reused by other tooling projects as well.

I despise autotools with a passion, it's slow, bloated, and encourages all sorts
of bad API/ABI practices that plagues many OSS projects. I know that Linus
explicitly did a Makefile based build system for Git for (I think) similar
reasons.

It might be a good idea to not let autotools into the kernel tooling tree, not
because ndctl's use of autotools is bad in any fashion (it appears to be a fairly
straightforward use), but to generally encourage good API/ABI practices in our
tooling space, and to encourage enhancements to the tools/build/ infrastructure.

Thanks,

Ingo