Re: [PATCH] libata-sff: Don't call bmdma_stop on non DMA capablecontrollers

[Mark Lord]

> (Yeah, mmap() has taught some people about MAP_FAIL, but that's pretty 
> unusual too.

It's so unusual, that I regularly find buggy code checking for NULL
instead of MAP_FAILED.  Just about every program I look at has it wrong
in at least one place.

Ditto for the result value from wait() -- lots of code fails to use
the fancy macros required for correct interpretation of it.

> The quality of our drivers is low;

I think that's a bit harsh.  But yes, compared to core parts
of the kernel perhaps (eg. page dirty mappings: remember the recent bugfix?).

The real deal is that using zero/NULL makes it *easier* to get the code right.
And we certainly have tons more people working on drivers than anything else,
so making it *easier* for those coders to reduce the bug count is a Good Thing(tm).

Cheers
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