* Ronald G Minnich rminnich@lanl.gov [060915 17:46]:
I really don't like how vague our config options are. I am IMed by people all the time asking me what config option such and such does. I have to go grep through the code to figure it all out since I can't keep them straight myself.
if you're grepping code you're in the wrong place. The src/config/Options.lb REQUIRES a comment describing the option. There are 150 options -- there are 1700+ in linux.
But when creating a Linux .config you have two major advantages:
- all config options are hierarchically sorted - you can get the help in the context of the option you are changing.
I am attaching the result of egrep define|comment src/config/options.lb to this message. What should we be doing better? I'm open to any ideas. Some of those comments are quite good, e.g.
but this one: define MEMORY_HOLE comment "Set to deal with memory hole"
One thing I notice is the quotation marks. Linux config does not have that. You are not limited to pack everything in one line there..
I think it's the lousy config interface. If we had something like kconfig, and a <help> button, and (in some cases) better comments, I think it would be better.
I also believe we should drop "use". Just have everything exported always, and write all of them in _one_ file to check if something goes wrong. And set sane defaults. In the first place, it makes config files completely unreadable.
Stefan