Re: I request inclusion of SAS Transport Layer and AIC-94xx into the kernel

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>]

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Luben Tuikov wrote:
>
> >    It's like real science: if you have a theory that doesn't match 
> >    experiments, it doesn't matter _how_ much you like that theory. It's
> >    wrong. You can use it as an approximation, but you MUST keep in mind 
> >    that it's an approximation.
> 
> But this is _the_ definition of a theory.  No one is arguing that
> a theory is not an approximation to observed behaviour.

No.

A scientific theory is an approximation of observed behaviour WITH NO 
KNOWN HOLES.

Once there are known holes in the theory, it's not a scientific theory. At 
best it's an approximation, but quite possibly it's just plain wrong.

And that's my point. Specs are not only almost invariably badly written, 
they also never actually match reality. 

At which point at _best_ it's just an approximation. At worst, it's much 
worse. At worst, it causes people to ignore reality, and then it becomes 
religion.

And that's way _way_ too common. People who ignore reality are sadly not 
at all unusual.

"But the spec says ..." is pretty much always a sign of somebody who has 
just blocked out the fact that some device doesn't.

So don't talk about specs.

Talk about working code that is _readable_ and _works_.

There's an absolutely mindbogglingly huge difference between the two.

			Linus