From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jun 4 11:22:36 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from picnic.mat.net (picnic.mat.net [206.246.122.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC26E15432 for ; Fri, 4 Jun 1999 11:22:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chuckr@picnic.mat.net) Received: from localhost (chuckr@localhost) by picnic.mat.net (8.9.3/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA96915; Fri, 4 Jun 1999 14:20:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 14:20:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey To: "John S. Dyson" Cc: Matthew Dillon , brian@Awfulhak.org, dyson@iquest.net, ahasty@mindspring.com, crossd@cs.rpi.edu, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, schimken@cs.rpi.edu Subject: Re: 3.2-stable, panic #12 In-Reply-To: <199906040556.AAA05478@dyson.iquest.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, John S. Dyson wrote: > I suggest that is the 2nd biggest mistake. The first biggest mistake is that > programmers working on a large project sometimes don't quite understand > the code that they are working on, and rather than investing in understanding > it so that if they choose to correct it or rewrite it, they rewrite it with > a superficial understanding, and miss features that had previously existed. John, that's true, but you didn't stress the fact of there being so many interdependencies in the memory system. Once you begin to make deltas away from our present model, it becomes increasingly harder and harder, when something goes wrong, not only to track down what was the real culprit, but even to try to add back in some previous parts. That's why you always tested the bejesus out of things, because the testing of VM is so terribly difficult to interpret, and so easy to break. I *love* the idea of new things being tested in VM. How come we can't give Matt his own cvs play area, something akin to what the newbus had in it's (amazingly short) infancy. He could make all the changes he wants, as fast as he wants, it would attract testers, but it would not break current. If it brought new features in, great. If it never got anywhere, it would harness Matt's energy the way he wants, and cool down the controversy. Matt is, everyone will agree, quite a different fellow, and maybe deserves this special handling; I would think it to be well worth the expenditure of resources. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@picnic.mat.net | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run picnic (FreeBSD-current) (301) 220-2114 | and jaunt (Solaris7). ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message