Re: [PATCH 1/3] Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Fri Dec 11 2009 - 14:20:17 EST


On 12/11/2009 07:31 AM, Michal Marek wrote:
>
> OK, that's valid point, indeed. Peter, would you ack Rob's patch with
> the oneline fix added (http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/12/8/94 plus
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/12/9/435)?
>

I strongly dislike his patch, as he open-codes specific multiprecision
arithmetic. This makes it hard for other people to maintain, and makes
it prone to errors -- as evidenced by the fact that it didn't even
replicate the known-good results.

I have made my position clear on this and other patches several times
before: I consider it a fool's errand, and a result of a completely
pointless crusade to make a particular science fair-type project a wee
bit easier. We have already seen real damage caused by it, since people
have used awk instead, and have gotten bitten by incompatibilities
between awk implementations.

As such, no, I will not ack this patch, and will consider myself
released of any obligation to maintain the code if this goes in anyway.
I would consider acking a C program which does proper multiprecision
arithmetic, but I'm also not going to spend my time on it.

-hpa

--
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.

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