Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:04:10 +0100 From: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl> To: Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, Bill Maniatty <maniattb@cs.rpi.edu>, FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, maniatty@cs.albany.edu, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Learning the FreeBSD Kernel Message-ID: <20000124100410.A691@daemon.ninth-circle.org> 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 [20000124 08:01], Mike Smith (msmith@freebsd.org) 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. This I agree on with Mike. Writing device drivers isn't like writing an application. The documentation I am writing will definately not be a tutorial style piece of documentation, but a reference guide with sufficient background material so that people a bit familiar with FreeBSD on source level (note the ``a bit'') will get enough ideas and clues from it to proceed forwards. I do not think making it a tutorial will be beneficial in the long run, since I would have to discuss kernel sources, gdb, ddb and a number of other things on the side. But then again we will see where we will end. I just know, from experience, that writing a driver involves more than just code. -- Jeroen Ruigrok vd W/Asmodai asmodai@[wxs.nl|bart.nl|freebsd.org] Documentation nutter/B-rated Coder BSD: Technical excellence at its best The BSD Programmer's Documentation Project <http://home.wxs.nl/~asmodai>; Ain't gonna spend the rest of my Life, quietly fading away... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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