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Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:16:05 +0100
From: Sam Vilain <sam@vilain.net>
To: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br>
Cc: davidsen@tmr.com, jamagallon@able.es, andrea@suse.de,
       alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, habanero@us.ibm.com,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, marcelo@conectiva.com.br
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4.19-rc3 (hyperthreading)
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Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br> wrote:

> Having code this readable is pretty much essential for
> maintenance, too.
> I wouldn't mind if every time I code or patch something
> that isn't up to the reading standard of Mr. Magallon's
> code somebody would raise his hand and/or LART me, until
> the code is easily readable.

The GNU coding standards make some very sensible comments on this
subject. A very good read;

  http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_24.html

I find it interesting that a large quantity of the kernel and C
library source code I have come across recently has no comments (with
the exception of the O(1) scheduler, very nice).  At the very least, I
think every function should have a comment listing all of its input
variables and what they mean, along with a rough idea of what the
function does, and what it returns, along with any assumptions.  It
would make the code a *lot* easier for programmers with less than guru
levels of knowledge to understand and hack on.
--
   Sam Vilain, sam@vilain.net     WWW: http://sam.vilain.net/
    7D74 2A09 B2D3 C30F F78E      GPG: http://sam.vilain.net/sam.asc
    278A A425 30A9 05B5 2F13

  Its not the size of the ship, its the size of the waves.
LITTLE RICHARD