linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Replace completions with semaphores

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Message-ID: <20080414165442.GN12774@kernel.dk>
Date:	Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:54:43 +0200
From:	Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>
To:	Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>
Cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Replace completions with semaphores

On Sun, Apr 13 2008, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 09:05:13AM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > there's also another aspect: completions are faster a bit 
> > in theory, because they know that they will schedule most of the time - 
> > while semaphores assume that they will _not_ schedule. (And that's 
> > exactly because the intent of the developer when using a completion is 
> > crystal clear.)
> 
> In practice though, the current implementation is slower.  Of course,
> that's fixable, and I strongly suspect that the current users of
> completions simply don't care about speed -- the normal use of
> completions is in startup and shutdown paths where a millisecond extra
> isn't going to be noticable.

I'd be surprised if it was in that range, milisecond range would
definetely mean that something was completely bused in that area :-).
IOW, I'd be surprised if you can measure much of a difference, even in
microbencmarks.

And performance does matter somewhat, it's not ONLY used in
startup/shutdown scenarios. The block layer uses it for sync requests,
for instance.

-- 
Jens Axboe

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