Re: Removing ARCNET stuffs

[Andrew Cagney <andrew.cagney%gmail.com@localhost>]

There's a complex tradeoff here

On 29 May 2015 at 12:09, J. Lewis Muir <jlmuir%imca-cat.org@localhost> wrote:
> In "Evolving Frameworks," [2] Don Roberts and Ralph Johnson suggest
> in the "Tree Examples" pattern that you should never write a software
> framework unless you have at least three applications that use it.  Part
> of the reasoning is that these applications help you come up with the
> proper abstractions for the framework.  If you think of NetBSD as a
> framework and the machine architectures and hardware as applications,
> then perhaps all of those "applications" can actually be a benefit to
> NetBSD and help it to have really nice abstractions and design.

Each new application that uses the framework adds "drag", slowing the
framework's ability to evolve; while some of that drag is due to code,
a surprising amount is politics.
Each time the framework is changed there's probabilistic risk that an
application breaks.  The real problem, though, is when no one notices,
yet demands that the application be maintain continue loud and clear.

Here's a suggestion:

- as part of proposing that code be removed, provide supporting
evidence of when/why it broke

- and conversely, anyone suggesting that the bug is an easy fix, back
that up with a test platform so this can be confirmed

Based on experience, if there is evidence of long-broken code (as in
several major releases back) then this is just the start of the
problems.  If the functionality (not the code) really is worth
salvaging then that is something better to do _after_ the overhaul
that caused this to be flushed out.

Andrew

Who is appalled to discover that pc532 support has been removed!