Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:17:42 +0800 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Bill Maniatty <maniattb@cs.rpi.edu>, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, maniatty@cs.albany.edu, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Learning the FreeBSD Kernel Message-ID: <20000124171742.M2643@mojave.worldwide.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <200001240635.WAA10110@mass.cdrom.com>; from msmith@FreeBSD.ORG on Sun, Jan 23, 2000 at 10:35:53PM -0800 References: <20000124123920.F2643@mojave.worldwide.lemis.com> <200001240635.WAA10110@mass.cdrom.com>
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On Sunday, 23 January 2000 at 22:35:53 -0800, Mike Smith wrote: >> I can't agree with Mike Smith that reading the code is adequate. It >> certainly doesn't apply to newcomers, but it doesn't even apply to >> seasoned hackers like Mike: the BSD style doesn't provide for adequate >> comments, and so what you see from the code is mainly tactics, not >> strategy. > > You miss my point; you don't want to be writing a driver until you know > what you're doing. Documentation on an OS' driver interface won't teach > you that; it's something that's really only ever gleaned from experience. Hmm. I don't really see what your reply has to do with what you quote. I also strongly suspect that *nobody* really knows what he's doing when he writes his first driver, and that it's an interative process to learn how to get there. Most of us were ``thrown in the deep end'', and somehow we learnt to swim. But in detail, what we all did was to look at all documentation we could find, including of course the source code. I didn't say that reading the source code is bad; it's definitely part of it, just not enough. To be fair, this is an experience I've made with multiple operating systems now. FreeBSD is no worse than the others; writing drivers is inadequately described in every system I know. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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