Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v11 0/8] Add a generic loader

[Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>]

Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:

> On 21/09/2016 17:46, Alistair Francis wrote:
>>> > I know it's way too late for design questions, but the thought just
>>> > occured to me: -device gives you what you need without defining yet
>>> > another command line option (good!), but is it appropriate?  It's not
>>> > exactly a device...  Would -object be a better fit?  I honestly don't
>>> > know.  Paolo?
>> I see your point, but I kind of think it makes sense that everything
>> uses the same command line argument.
>> 
>> I image it would be very confusing if we have -device and -object.
>> Then when you want to add something you will need to figure out if it
>> is a device or an object? How do you know which one is which?
>> 
>> I agree that technically it isn't a device but I think this is still
>> clear what you are trying to do.
>
> I think -device is okay for something that isn't a "backend" but is
> directly guest-visible.

Well, the contents of a block device is just as guest-visible.  We split
the device in a frontend and a backend, and the contents comes from the
backend.

We traditionally don't model memory as a split device.  Perhaps we
should.  Regardless of whether we actually do, "contents of a memory
device that you need to create by some other means (explicit or
implicit)" feels much more like -object than like -device to me.