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Date:      Wed, 15 Nov 2000 13:08:27 -0500
From:      "John W. De Boskey" <jwd@bsdwins.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc:        Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG>, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Turning on debugging in GENERIC
Message-ID:  <20001115130827.A1762@bsdwins.com>
In-Reply-To: <200011151755.KAA13742@usr01.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 05:55:54PM %2B0000
References:  <20001115134312.C7752@warning.follo.net> <200011151755.KAA13742@usr01.primenet.com>

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----- Terry Lambert's Original Message -----
> > I'm not sure I'm happy about DIAGNOSTIC; unless changed, it
> > significantly change some codepaths, and it produce output about system
> > state, not just extra checks.  Any plain checks that are under DIAGNOSTIC is
> > there through a miscommunication or not finished conversion, anyway; it
> > should only be causing extra debug output.
> 
> I am not happy about the code path changes it engenders.
> 
> However, I see the need for turning it on, during a period
> where extreme instability of snapshots is anticipated/likely,
> and I think that's the reason it is being proposed.
> 
> Many people "try" -current on small scratch disks that they
> install from snapshots, rather than polluting their local
> trees with -current bits, particularly since the answer to
> their bug reports is pretty much to ignore them and tell the
> reporter to "resup" or ask "have you tried the snapshot?".
> 
> I think that having the DIAGNOSTIC option is OK; on the other
> hand, I somewhat wish that this would move from a GENERIC
> file into a SNAPSHOT file, and that snapshots be configured
> from there instead of GENERIC, since reverting this back and
> forth every six months, instead of changing a cron script,
> seems like a real waste of repository commits.

I tend to disagree here... Please don't build snapshots with
this code turned on.

Yes, run with these options turned on by default in GENERIC.

I think building snapshots with a SNAPSHOT kernel is an
interesting idea, but it leads to dual maint issues where
GENERIC gets updated, but SNAPSHOT does not.

> 
> All that said, let's not downplay the code path changes: I
> have worked in places where I had to be "the grumpy old man
> of the source tree", when the code would not build due to
> "DEBUG" _not_ being asserted during the build, or other such
> diagnostic manifest constants.  I really dislike manifest
> constants in all forms, because of this, and prefer link or
> run time tuning.

Can we turn some of these options into sysctl variables and
remove them as kernel config options?

sysctl -w kern.diagnostics=1

with the appropriate code changes? (Yes, minor perf loss)...

just .02 cents worth of rambling,
-John

> 
> I really see no _good_ reason a source repository should not
> be at least buildable at all times, other than laziness, but
> that's an argument for another day.
> 
> 
> 					Terry Lambert
> 					terry@lambert.org
> ---
> Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
> or previous employers.
> 
> 
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