Upcoming API change: struct path

bronson — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:49:28 +0000

As Carroll Smith says, if you can't find one way to remove 100 pounds from a race car, you should try to find 100 ways to remove 1 pound.

Small but invasive cleanups like this are smilar. When looked at individually, they just look like pointless liability. Since it takes only a few additional seconds or minutes for a programmer to understand the harder case, how could you ever justify an invasive change like this.

The thing is, little fixes like this add up. Apply one cleanup and very little happens. Apply 100 cleanups and the kernel starts becoming a much nicer place to work.

Just make sure that you apply these cleanups early in the release cycle! When I manage a project, I like to keep track of the cleanups that I can't justify applying. Then, the first week or two after a release, I run though this list and clean things up as best as I can. It helps to keep the code from getting TOO crufty. I guess it's like spring cleaning.

Anyhow, sorry for the rambling. :)

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Upcoming API change: struct path