linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Cleanup: replace prefered with preferred

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Date:   Thu, 24 Oct 2019 20:30:51 +0300
From:   Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko.sakkinen@...ux.intel.com>
To:     Mark Salyzyn <salyzyn@...roid.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kernel-team@...roid.com,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>,
        Harry Wentland <harry.wentland@....com>,
        Leo Li <sunpeng.li@....com>,
        Alex Deucher <alexander.deucher@....com>,
        Christian König <christian.koenig@....com>,
        "David (ChunMing) Zhou" <David1.Zhou@....com>,
        David Airlie <airlied@...ux.ie>,
        Daniel Vetter <daniel@...ll.ch>,
        VMware Graphics <linux-graphics-maintainer@...are.com>,
        Thomas Hellstrom <thellstrom@...are.com>,
        Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>,
        Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...nel.org>,
        Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@...merspace.com>,
        Anna Schumaker <anna.schumaker@...app.com>,
        Alexander Aring <alex.aring@...il.com>,
        Jukka Rissanen <jukka.rissanen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Alexey Kuznetsov <kuznet@....inr.ac.ru>,
        Hideaki YOSHIFUJI <yoshfuji@...ux-ipv6.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Matthew Garrett <matthewgarrett@...gle.com>,
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        Maxim Martynov <maxim@...sta.com>,
        David Ahern <dsahern@...il.com>,
        Francesco Ruggeri <fruggeri@...sta.com>,
        Linus Lüssing <linus.luessing@...3.blue>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Feng Tang <feng.tang@...el.com>,
        "Steven Rostedt (VMware)" <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Rafael Aquini <aquini@...hat.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
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Subject: Re: [PATCH] Cleanup: replace prefered with preferred

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 08:40:59AM -0700, Mark Salyzyn wrote:
> On 10/23/19 4:56 AM, Jarkko Sakkinen wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 02:41:45PM -0700, Mark Salyzyn wrote:
> > > Replace all occurrences of prefered with preferred to make future
> > > checkpatch.pl's happy.  A few places the incorrect spelling is
> > > matched with the correct spelling to preserve existing user space API.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Mark Salyzyn <salyzyn@...roid.com>
> > I'd fix such things when the code is otherwise change and scope this
> > patch only to Documentation/. There is no pragmatic benefit of doing
> > this for the code.
> > 
> > /Jarkko
> 
> The pragmatic benefit comes with the use of an ABI/API checker (which is a
> 'distro' thing, not a top of tree kernel thing) produces its map which is
> typically required to be co-located in the same tree as the kernel
> repository. Quite a few ABI/API update checkins result in a checkpatch.pl
> complaint about the misspelled elements being (re-)recorded due to
> proximity. We have a separate task to improve how it is tracked in Android
> to reduce milepost marker changes that result in sweeping changes to the
> database which would reduce the occurrences.
> 
> I will split this between pure and inert documentation/comments for now,
> with a followup later for the code portion which understandably is more
> controversial.
> 
> Cleanup is the least appreciated part of kernel maintenance ;-}.
> 
> Sincerely -- Mark Salyzyn

I'm a strong believer of "evolutionary" approach. Patch sets for the
most part (everything in the end has to be considered case by case, not
a strict rule) should have some functional changes involved.

What I do require for the parts that I maintain is that any new change
will result cleaner code base than the one that existed before that
change was applied. Again, there are some exceptions to this e.g.
circulating a firmware bug but this is my driving guideline as a
maintainer.

Doing cleanups just for cleanups can sometimes add unnecessary merge
conflicts when backporting patches to stable kernels. Thus, if you are
doing just a cleanup you should have extremely good reasons to do so.

/Jarkko