Re: [PATCH 16/20] ata_piix: add EFAR SLC90E66 support

[Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>> such optimizations because maintenance cost > potential savings (i.e.
>> making SCSI quirks optional, I have draft patch for this, itself cuts
>> like 10k).
>
> Interesting in itself but irrelevant because the current situation is
> that a piix change cannot break oldpiix, efar, it8213, radisys etc and
> vice versa. Particuarly important when the other chips are not common so
> test coverage is difficult, and that far outweighs the maintenance
> savings for other things, especially as this is code that just doesn't
> change.
>
>>
>> > It also leads to hideous uglies in the main code paths like this :
>> >
>> > +       unsigned int has_sitre  = (dev->vendor != 0x8086 ||
>> > +                                  dev->device != 0x1230);
>> >
>> > which also has exactly zero comments.
>>
>> has_sitre variable name is documentation in itself for anyone knowing
>> the hardware or has read a chipset/code documentation.
>
> And naturally anyone randomly glancing at the code knows why it's
> checking 0x8086 & 0x1230, and why the radisys check interacts with it.
>
> Bartlomiej - those are a mess, a complete and total mess. It doesn't
> necessarily argue against folding them together, but at least do a clean
> job of it.

I beg to differ regardless "the mess" comment but well, you can always
take my work and "add value" to it like in 2009 (when somehow you miss
that your pata_rdc also needs locking fixes but you were more
concerned with little differences between my work and your
"dreamwork"..)