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Date:      Sat, 09 Jan 1999 23:53:45 -0800
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
To:        Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
Cc:        Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>, Darren Reed <darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au>, committers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: sysctl descriptions 
Message-ID:  <50085.915954825@zippy.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 10 Jan 1999 08:29:49 %2B0100." <19167.915953389@critter.freebsd.dk> 

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> Sysctl descriptions is documentation stuff.  No bit of code can read
> it for any other purpose than presentation as ASCII for the operator
> to read.
> 
> There is NO reason whatsoever to load it with the kernel.  Next thing
> you will what to stick documentation for all ioctl(2) calls into the
> kernel.
> 
> KLD's could easily stick files into:
> 
> 	/usr/share/doc/sysctl/desc/this/is/my/sysctl.txt

Actually, there is a legitimate syncronization issue to be dealt with
here.  If I have a sysctl implemented in one area of the code with a
doc string that describes it, I'm going to be more inclined to stick
it in the macro definition or something itself so that I have doc
string and associated sysctl code together.  If I have to go remember
to edit a file somewhere as well, I'm going to forget just as
developers have been forgetting such extraneous details for years and
the problem is acute enough that entire programming paradigms
(tangle/weave) have been evolved in an effort to deal with the
problem.  I'd sooner have a larger kernel if it meant that my
doc strings had a better chance of being actually *correct*. :)

- Jordan

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