From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Nov 8 08:25:11 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA20011 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 8 Nov 1996 08:25:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA20005; Fri, 8 Nov 1996 08:25:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id JAA12133; Fri, 8 Nov 1996 09:14:34 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199611081614.JAA12133@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: More info on the daily panics... To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 09:14:34 -0700 (MST) Cc: michaelh@cet.co.jp, terry@lambert.org, ponds!rivers@dg-rtp.dg.com, dyson@freefall.freebsd.org, freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199611080307.TAA04492@root.com> from "David Greenman" at Nov 7, 96 07:07:52 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-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [ ... somone's proposed assert model ... ] > We've been down this road before. The asserts model isn't very well liked > by a lot of people, including myself. It tends to bloat the sources with a > lot of unuseful checks and isn't flexible enough to accomodate more > algorithmically complex checks. For what it's worth: Proper interface abstraction precludes the need for algorithmically complex checks. The need for complexity arises from the same statite (stateful object) being modified on both sides of the interface. Interfaces are to abstract state, not to imply it. The number of identifiable cross-interface statite manipulations that exist is another was to say "minimum level of fractal complexity visible to an interface consumer". Or to put it in English terminology instead of mathematics: Complexity is inversely proportional to elegance You can put both of these in the "fortunes" file if you attribute them. 8-). Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.