jchacon@genuity.net <jchacon@genuity.net> wrote on Fri, 18 May 2001
at 11:58:17 -0400 in <200105181558.LAA08374@dragon.tools.gtei.net>:

> So we should promote an inconsistant interface on *DEBUG's?

Essentially -- yes. We have never had such a consistent interface,
and we should be loathe to carefully consider the consequences of
forcing one.

Further, it should be done in a careful thoughtful fashion. Requiring
a consistent interface is not a good reason to change one of them and
leave all the others.

> More than a few of them use it for DPRINTF in a much larger way than
> pcmcia does. Just because pcmcia uses it in a small way is no real excuse
> to include it by default while excluding others.

I do not understand this argument.

> In this case you seem to be using the excuse that since the
> interface is not defined we should explicitly do a one-off for
> pcmcia (and wdc then) since it's convenient for you. However, since
> it adds *zero* value to the general end user I still fail to see why

It (and perhaps more importantly PCMCIACISDEBUG) do not add zero value.
It may be important for non-developers to be able to turn them on
to perform useful debugging and useful communications with developers
without requiring custom kernels.

Perhaps this is an architectural flaw, but if so, that flaw should
be correced before the useful mechanism is removed.

> the general end user should have it compiled into their kernels by
> default with no easy way from the config to turn it off.  Especially
> when the config file is the defined place to use for setting kernel
> options and configurations...

You seem to be ignoring my assertion that these are valuable to
non-developers. Do you disagree? Do you find my argument insufficient?
Explain, please.

--jhawk