Subject: Re: Questions about 1.3
To: John F. Woods <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com>
From: Ted Lemon <mellon@hoffman.vix.com>
List: current-users
Date: 10/03/1997 08:33:56
I think it can safely be said that there are reasons why somebody
might want more than eight partitions on a disk, although it can also
be argued that such a person really ought to buy two smaller spindles
rather than one big spindle - it's definitely faster.   But we can't
always afford to buy the exact right hardware.

Having said that, we also can't afford to make half-assed changes to
code in order to solve problems like this.   If we were willing to
make half-assed changes, NetBSD would not be the quality product it
is.

Changing the partitioning scheme sounds like a good idea.
Implementing slices sounds like a good idea.   Arbitrarily changing
the partition count sounds like a reasonable way to make a few
people's lives easier in the short term before we get around to
implementing slices.

But none of these things sounds reasonable in the context of a code
freeze that's three weeks away.  This is a change that should be made
and given a _lot_ of time to settle out, not just three weeks.
Please, let's not make this code freeze an excuse to toss in whatever
junk a couple of people might find useful, just because we can't Do
The Right Thing in the time available.

(Aiigh!   I am become Nochangenik, Preventer of Implementation!)

			       _MelloN_