OK, I give in, I'll post some opinions in this advocacy-like thread.
One of the original connotations of "hacker" was someone who made
furniture with an axe.
There is a difference between a debugger and a compiler. A compiler
never substitutes for understanding. In fact, I gain more understanding
from reading C source code than I would from reading handcrafted machine
code or handcrafted assembly code.
Lastly, I believe Linus has said two things: (1) he prefers to work with
people who deeply understand the part of Linux that they work on, and (2)
he believes that an integrated kernel debugger would be detrimental to
(1).
Rather than discussing what he's said, I ask: OK, if an integrated kernel
debugger is inimical to developing more gurus, what contributions would
Linus welcome?
More documentation, so that more people can understand more deeply?
Cleanup patches, to reduce the complexity that people have to wade through?
Linus already seems very friendly to such patches (except when he's
trying to push out a stable release).
More commentary with submitted patches? Russ Nelson used to write linux
kernel patch summaries, and so did I. It would be a lot easier if
the people who wrote the patches wrote that commentary, and if it
were kept with the patches or near the patches.
A source control system so that curious people could do the equivalent of
"cvs annotate" and figure out who wrote particular pieces?
Michael Elizabeth Chastain
<mailto:mec@shout.net>
"love without fear"
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