Re: [PATCH v4 12/13] Compiler Attributes: add Doc/process/programming-language.rst

From: Jonathan Corbet
Date: Sun Sep 09 2018 - 14:19:08 EST


On Sat, 8 Sep 2018 23:24:58 +0200
Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Documentation/process/index.rst | 1 +
> .../process/programming-language.rst | 45 +++++++++++++++++++
> 2 files changed, 46 insertions(+)
> create mode 100644 Documentation/process/programming-language.rst
>
So I have some overall thoughts on the documentation; my apologies for
not getting to this until you got to v4...

1) I think the document is mistitled. It's not really about the language
that the kernel used, it's about compiler attributes. So I would make
both the name of the document and it introduction reflect that.

2) This is an ideal opportunity to document what all of those attributes
actually mean. I would guess that is the information many developers
will come here looking for, and they'll go away frustrated. The ideal
thing to do, IMO, would be do say what each attribute means (rather
than just which compilers support it) in a DOC section in the new
compiler_attributes.h header, then use RST directives to pull all that
information into this document.

Thanks,

jon