From owner-freebsd-multimedia Sun Aug 17 13:14:43 1997 Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-multimedia> Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19145 for multimedia-outgoing; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:14:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA19120; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:14:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id NAA07305; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:06:20 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Message-Id: <199708172006.NAA07305@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Problem with my Wincast, fxtv To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:06:20 -0700 (MST) Cc: hasty@rah.star-gate.com, mestery@winternet.com, freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG, current@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199708170956.TAA04178@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Aug 17, 97 07:26:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Next release of the sound driver will not use isa_dmastatus from isa.c > > rather I will duplicate the functionality in the sound driver. > > Am I the only person that thinks that this is unbelievably stupid? I don't want to get into a huge argument about this, but... Not to put too fine a point on it, but Amancio stated what his requirements were, and why, and why the current isa_dmastatus code was logically combining multiple things which he needed to be discrete, but which the other drivers using isa_dmastatus didn't care whether they were discrete or not. In other words, there's a historical lumping that occurred without consideration for the needs of the sound drivers, and rather than acknowledging this and correcting the granularity of the implementation, there is general defense of the status quo for no apparent reason other than "it is the status quo, and it's less work". Basically, "code inertia". > All of a sudden, the sound drivers are the only kernel subsystem that > need PnP support, and now ISA DMA support too? Please spare a few > seconds thought for the integrity of the system as a whole, rather > than as a vehicle for your pet projects... I think he has, in both cases, and I think he has found the current framework lacking in light of the integrity of the system as a whole, and currently only useful as a vehicle for the pet projects of people other than himself. The Sword of Damocles is a two-edged blade, and two-edged blades cut both ways... Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.