Re: [PATCH 1/5] Renaming weak prng invocations - prandom_bytes_state, prandom_u32_state

From: Andy Shevchenko
Date: Wed Dec 14 2022 - 10:58:15 EST


On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 05:53:52PM +0200, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 04:15:49PM +0100, Eric Dumazet wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 1:34 PM Stanislaw Gruszka
> > <stanislaw.gruszka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 03:35:20PM +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> > > > Please CC me on future revisions.
> > > >
> > > > As of 6.2, the prandom namespace is *only* for predictable randomness.
> > > > There's no need to rename anything. So nack on this patch 1/5.
> > >
> > > It is not obvious (for casual developers like me) that p in prandom
> > > stands for predictable. Some renaming would be useful IMHO.
> >
> > Renaming makes backports more complicated, because stable teams will
> > have to 'undo' name changes.
> > Stable teams are already overwhelmed by the amount of backports, and
> > silly merge conflicts.
> >
> > Take another example :
> >
> > u64 timecounter_read(struct timecounter *tc)
> >
> > You would think this function would read the timecounter, right ?
> >
> > Well, it _updates_ many fields from @tc, so a 'better name' would also
> > be useful.
>
> Right, at some point we become into the world of
>
> #define true 0
>
> because... (read below)
>
> > linux kernel is not for casual readers.
>
> P.S. I believe you applied a common sense and in some cases
> the renames are necessary.

And before you become to a wrong conclusion by reading between the lines,
no, I'm not taking either side (to rename or not to rename) in this case.

--
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko