linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/3] x86: add cpuset

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Date:	Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:47:41 -0700
From:	Mike Travis <travis@....com>
To:	Paul Jackson <pj@....com>
CC:	mingo@...e.hu, tglx@...utronix.de, hpa@...or.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] x86: add cpuset_scnprintf function

> However doing this is worse in my view than simply breaking the format
> outright, unilaterally and irrevocably.  If you just flat out stick a
> fork in an API and break it hard on some release, then at least user
> space knows that it must adapt or die at that version.  If you hand
> user space the means to break that API, then any properly and
> defensively written user code has to be prepared to deal with both API
> flavors, and the majority of user space code is broken half the time,
> when run on a system with the API variant it wasn't expecting.  More
> over, you end up with apps having "toilet seat wars" with each other:
> you left it up and it should be down; no you left it down and it should
> be up.  Not a pretty sight.
> 
> Perhaps I totally misunderstand this patchset ?
> 

Hi,

I wanted to not break current apps unmercifully, but perhaps I should
default it to the "non-compatible" mode (and adjust the schedstat version
to indicate this)?  [It's the only output that I found that seemed to care.]

And if users have apps that they can't convert, they can revert to the
"old" (compatible) method of outputs.  I know if I'm a user and I'm really
interested in understanding the outputs when there's hundreds and hundreds
of cpus, then the more compact format is much more useful.

I can't believe there hasn't been many changes in all of these outputs.
Like what happened before Hyperthreading, or 3rd level caches, or ?
Even the new Intel announcements for Nehalem may introduce more changes
in what's important in the output information.  Plus I was under the
impression that one of the basic tenets of Linux was that API's can and
will change?

Thanks,
Mike
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