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Date:      Thu, 4 Jun 1998 16:01:13 -0500 (EST)
From:      "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG>
To:        nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Cc:        dyson@FreeBSD.ORG, nate@mt.sri.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: kernfs/procfs questions...
Message-ID:  <199806042101.QAA00518@dyson.iquest.net>
In-Reply-To: <199806041927.NAA03558@mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Jun 4, 98 01:27:47 pm"

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Nate Williams said:
> >
> > I disagree for easily one simple reason:  sysctl affords an internal
> > documentation scheme that isn't a hack.
> 
> Only to a developer, not to a user.  Here's some of your log messages
> for sysctl's that mean something to you, but don't mean a thing to a
> normal user.
> 
> vm_param.h
> vm.pageout_algorithm=????
> 
> vm_zone.c
> Add exposure of some vm_zone allocation stats by sysctl.
> 
> And these would be, and would help me by?  Where should they be
> documented for the user?  man 9 tuning?  Are they specific to the zone
> allocation?
> 
> I'm not saying that kernfs would make this easier, but if I had a tuning
> program that allowed me to tune it (man 8 vmtune), then it would be
> *better* documented.  Maybe I'm not screaming so much for the
> implementation, but the interface and the way that new sysctl are added
> w/out any regard to documentation/accessing them. :(
> 
You aren't arguing /kernfs vs. sysctl here (other than kernfs is terminally
broken regarding the ability of internal documentation being exposed
through the interface.)   Sysctl can afford a mechanism for exposing
the info, and there is even a slot in the existing internal implementation.
It might not be exposed yet, but at least it is not as terminally
broken as /kernfs is.

Note that I have been in the process of adding messages to my local
tree over the last few weeks.  You can complain that I haven't documented
things well, but Nate, you are very capable of helping with the problem.


-- 
John                  | Never try to teach a pig to sing,
dyson@freebsd.org     | it just makes you look stupid,
jdyson@nc.com         | and it irritates the pig.

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