CVS Update: xc (branch: trunk)

[Mike A. Harris]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Felix Kühling wrote:

>>   The Radeon (and other?) drivers used to have 
>> a "ForcePCIMode" option used for the exact same purpose that 
>> you're indicating you're using it for, and it was renamed to be 
>> BusType in newer radeon driver code to be consistent with other 
>> drivers and to generically handle different bustypes.
>
>True. But do I need such a generic option in a driver that is never
>going to need it. Maybe a generic option looks nice to you and me, but
>makes things more confusing for users. For example it wouldn't make
>sense to set BusType to AGP on PCI hardware. But a user may be tempted
>to think that this option enables him to magically upgrade his PCI card
>to an AGP card. My point is that an option name and semantics should be
>chosen such that it clearly indicates what you can and can't do with it.
>ForcePCIMode does that.

I think consistency is more important myself, but that's just me.


>> When adding new options to drivers, it is a good idea to see if 
>> there is already a common option used in others, and aim for 
>> consistency. 
>
>I did. I was fully aware that the Radeon driver's ForcePCIMode option
>was once changed to the more generic BusType option. But I also saw that
>the r128 driver still has a ForcePCIMode option. I thought r128 was a
>better model for the Savage driver.

It appears then that the R128 driver could use a consistency 
patch as well.  Thanks for pointing that out.  ;o)


>>  It really sucks if someone adds a config option and 
>> then later renames it to something more sensible and/or generic, 
>> because it breaks user's deployed X server configuration when 
>> they upgrade to a new OS release.
>
>I agree. But I'm pretty sure there will never be a need to change this
>option to a more generic one in this driver.

Your choice I suppose.  I hope it doesn't change in the future 
and become an invalid option, or you'll get a bunch of bug 
reports redirected your way when users upgrade.  ;o)

No biggie however ...


-- 
Mike A. Harris, Systems Engineer - X11 Development team, Red Hat Canada, Ltd.

IT executives rate Red Hat #1 for value:  http://www.redhat.com/promo/vendor