netdev - Re: [PATCH] New driver "sfc" for Solarstorm SFC4000 controller (try #7)

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Date:	Mon, 3 Mar 2008 12:39:37 -0800
From:	Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...tta.com>
To:	Dan Williams <dcbw@...hat.com>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, bhutchings@...arflare.com,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] New driver "sfc" for Solarstorm SFC4000 controller (try
 #7)

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:22:55 -0500
Dan Williams <dcbw@...hat.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-03-03 at 11:02 -0800, David Miller wrote:
> > From: Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
> > Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:56:24 +0000
> > 
> > > The patch (against netdev-2.6) is at:
> > >   https://support.solarflare.com/netdev/7/netdev-2.6-sfc-2.2.0106.patch
> > 
> > Nobody can properly review the driver if it's off on some external web
> > site instead of posted here.
> 
> The diff is 707K; I certainly thought that netdev had a message size
> limit.  What's the proper policy on splitting up _new_ drivers?  There
> may/may not be a good way of splitting up any given new driver for
> piecemeal in-line review.  If there's not, what's the alternative?

Part of the problem is that you put a lot of stuff all in one driver:
  * sensors support
  * large debugfs chunk
  * efx driver layer
  * event queue

You created a big monolith. No one likes reading big stuff, it requires
lots of time, as much as going over a whole subsystem. The fact that so
many callbacks and hooks are needed implies that the design got out of hand
for a simple device.

Maybe an alternative would be to make your device better match existing
infrastructure. The EFX code looks like a separate driver which should
show up as a bus in the driver model, not a network device. Other people
who don't just do network device could help as well.
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