On Jun 20, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Mike Davis wrote:
Karen Shaeffer wrote:
On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 02:41:42AM -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote:
c) some mix of mentoring by a guru and working your ass off. A
bright
and motivated person can teach themselves C, but I'll be damned if I
think that they can teach themselves to code C >>well<< in less than
years of painful mistake-driven lessons unless they have a guru or
some
other way of learning some of the simple wisdom that makes it
possible
to turn out decent, readable, code. And even with a guru and
working
quite hard, it still takes years, just fewer years.
Today it is very straight forward. The 2.6.x linux kernel is an
exemplary
body of superb C programming code. All you need is motivation and a
network
connection. And the linux kernel email development lists have
hundreds of
programming guru's pontificating and standing on soap boxes daily.
Thanks,
Karen
Linus made this statement or a very similar one at a Linux Expo at
Duke back in 1998. In his version, he included the advice that if
you wanted to write good code, you should start by reading good
code. Then he went on to recommend the linux kernel.
Reading code is IMHO one of the most important parts of learning to
write good code. It doesn't matter if the target language is f77, C,
or even (gulp) java. Reading well written code will help one to
understand how to construct it.
Mike
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There are many positive things to say about the Linux kernel, but
"good code" is not one of them.
Well that is too broad an indictment - There is good code in there,
but the level varies widely.
Have you <<looked>> at the TTY drivers? Have you counted the number of
"<< 9" s in the block code?
Tried to figure out which includes are actually active? Tried to
figure out which of the 17 ways to do
something is the "approved" one?
I have one of the copies of the "Lions" book - the annoted sources for
V6. That is good code. Written by
one or a very few exceptional programmers, not an agglomeration of a
zillion patches.
And don't get me started about the ways in which Linux is ill suited
to HPC. . . . well actually that
would be a pretty good debate for this forum.
The kernel is very reliable compared to pretty much anything, and that
is worth a lot, but it isn't the place
to learn programming style.
-Larry
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