linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] Memory folios for v5.15

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Date:   Tue, 24 Aug 2021 12:11:49 -0700
From:   Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:     Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
Cc:     David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Memory folios for v5.15

On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 12:02 PM Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org> wrote:
>
> Choosing short words at random from /usr/share/dict/words:

I don't think you're getting my point.

In fact, you're just making it WORSE.

"short" and "greppable" is not the main issue here.

"understandable" and "follows other conventions" is.

And those "other conventions" are not "book binders in the 17th
century". They are about operating system design.

So when you mention "slab" as a name example, that's not the argument
you think it is. That's a real honest-to-goodness operating system
convention name that doesn't exactly predate Linux, but is most
certainly not new.

In fact, "slab" is a bad example for another reason: we don't actually
really use it outside of the internal implementation of the slab
cache. The name we actually *use* tends to be "kmalloc()" or similar,
which most definitely has a CS history that goes back even further and
is not at all confusing to anybody.

So no. This email just convinces me that you have ENTIRELY the wrong
approach to naming and is just making me more convinced that "folio"
came from the wrong kind of thinking.

Because "random short words" is absolutely the last thing you should look at.

             Linus