Re: config(5) break down

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:46:10PM +0900, Masao Uebayashi wrote:
 > > ?> > ?> It's necessary to be flat to be modular.
 > > ?> >
 > > ?> > Mm... not strictly. That's only true when there are diamonds in the
 > > ?> > dependency graph; otherwise, declaring B inside A just indicates that
 > > ?> > B depends on A. Consider the following hackup of files.ufs:
 > > ?>
 > > ?> There're diamonds (for example, ppp-deflate depends on ppp and zlib).
 > >
 > > Sure. But mostly there aren't.
 > 
 > % grep ':.*,' sys/conf/files | wc -l
 >         86

And? I don't understand your point. There are a lot more than 86
entities in sys/conf/files.

 > > ?> In this plan, what *.kmod will be generated?
 > >
 > > The ones declared? Or one big one, or one per source file, or whatever
 > > the blazes you want, actually...
 > 
 > And how dependencies are represented?

In files.*? In the example I wrote before, either explicitly or by
containment. If you mean in the modules themselves, that seems like a
different problem.

 > > Um. I know perfectly well that config currently uses braces for
 > > something else. That's irrelevant. There's no need to use braces for
 > > grouping; it just happens to be readily comprehensible to passersby.
 > > There's an infinite number of possible other grouping symbols that can
 > > be used, ranging from << >> to (! !) or even things like *( )*.
 > > Furthermore, the existing use of braces can just as easily be changed
 > > to something else if that seems desirable.
 > 
 > I don't like unnecessary changes.

And I don't like making a mess in order to avoid "unnecessary"
changes. Do it right, then it won't have to be done again next year.

 > > There's a reason I said "syntax like the above" and "if we can all
 > > agree on what it should be". That wasn't a concrete proposal, it
 > > wasn't meant to be a concrete proposal, no concrete proposal is
 > > complete without an analysis of whether the grammar remains
 > > unambiguous, and nitpicking it on those grounds is futile.
 > >
 > > You seem to be completely missing the point.
 > 
 > So you're objecting my concrete proposal with your not-concrete
 > proposal.  All you've said is "I don't like small files".  If you have
 > a concrete proposal, please post it as another thread.

I've objected to your "concrete" proposal, which wasn't very concrete,
on the grounds that I don't see any advantages to exploding files.*
into a million tiny pieces. I am trying to suggest alternate
approaches.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost