Re: API documentation (was [PATCH] Replace completions with semaphores)

[Bart Van Assche]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  Books should only be used to obtain the general picture, any details
>  will be instantly-obsolete, esp at the pace Linux changes.
>
>  Most of the concepts from LDD3 are still valid, many of the details are
>  dead wrong.
>
>  Can't we make LDD4 a high level book, explcitly mentioning how people
>  should go about obtaining details? Like go ask on #kernelnewbies and the
>  sorts.
>
>  The thing I always tell #kernelnewbies people is to look at a related
>  driver (of course that kite doesn't always fly). Another good way to
>  learn stuff is to just read the implementation.
>
>  A 'trick' that is often useful is to look in git to see how something
>  was changed, provided you knew how to do it some time in the past.

What I remember from the first time I wrote a network driver is that
reading the chapter in LDD3 about network drivers was the fastest way
to get started. Learning how to write a network driver by reverse
engineering existing drivers would have required much more time. My
opinion is that mentioning all relevant details in a book makes sense.

Bart.
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