linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] Kbuild updates for v5.18-rc1

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Date:   Wed, 30 Mar 2022 11:14:52 +0900
From:   Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@...nel.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kbuild mailing list <linux-kbuild@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Kbuild updates for v5.18-rc1

On Wed, Mar 30, 2022 at 5:10 AM Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
> I pulled this, and then immediately unpulled.
>
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2022 at 5:09 AM Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> >  - Change the .config format to use CONFIG_FOO=n instead of
> >    "# CONFIG_FOO is not set"
>
> This is unacceptable.
>
> The change was apparently made to make automation easier, at the
> expense of making it harder for people to parse.

Making automation was not the main motivation.

We use comment lines in two ways.

[1] disabled option
     # CONFIG_FOO is not set

[2] real comments

    #
    # IRQ subsystem
    #
    CONFIG_GENERIC_IRQ_PROBE=y
       [ snip]
    # CONFIG_GENERIC_IRQ_DEBUGFS is not set
    # end of IRQ subsystem



In the current .config format,
 it is easy to tell the difference between
"this is enabled" and "this is not enabled",
but it is hard to tell the difference between
"this is not enabled" and "this is a comment".


I constantly receive some patches (e.g. [1] )
for better commenting, but the weirdness
is that Kconfig uses comments to store actual
information.

[1] https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-kbuild/patch/20211213100043.45645-3-arielmarcovitch@gmail.com/


Having said that, you really dislike this change.
Let me send v2.


>
> That is not a valid tradeoff.
>
> I _look_ at my config files. Constantly. I don't want some mess where
> it's really damn hard to visually tell the difference between "this is
> enabled" and "this is not enabled".
>
> So no, I'm not pulling this kind of horrible "make it simpler for
> automation, and harder for humans" to read.
>
>                 Linus



-- 
Best Regards
Masahiro Yamada