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Re: [PATCH] arm: ioperm use /proc/sys not sysctl
Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:
> ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) writes:
>
>> When I have seen them the GNU changelogs seem to be saying I did
>> xyz (which you can see from the diff).
>
> Which diff? There is no diff if you only have the tarball.
Which explains how the tradition got started in gnu projects. The
come from a time before good version control could be counted on to
keep and make all of those thing available to you.
>> Instead of saying why someone did xyz.
>
> The "why" should be put in a comment. That's where you look first for
> it.
In general why a change is made is different from why the code works
the way it does. If you don't retain support for calling sysctl() on
some code path there is no need for the code to retain comments
apologizing for that. However the history of the code would not make
sense without that explanation.
It makes sense now. It is a relic of the stone ages of programming
but it makes sense now.
Eric