From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:27:14 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [patch 0/4] mm: de-skew page refcount In-Reply-To: <20060119170656.GA9904@wotan.suse.de> Message-ID: References: <20060118024106.10241.69438.sendpatchset@linux.site> <20060118170558.GE28418@wotan.suse.de> <20060119140039.GA958@wotan.suse.de> <20060119170656.GA9904@wotan.suse.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Nick Piggin Cc: Linux Memory Management , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Hugh Dickins , Andrew Morton , Andrea Arcangeli , David Miller List-ID: On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Nick Piggin wrote: > > Hmm... this is what the de-skew patch _did_ (although it was wrapped > in a function called get_page_unless_zero), in fact the main aim was > to prevent this twiddling and the de-skewing was just a nice side effect > (I guess the patch title is misleading). > > So I'm confused... The thing I minded was the _other_ changes, namely the de-skewing itself. It seemed totally unnecessary to what you claimed was the point of the patch. So I objected to the patch on the grounds that it did what you claimed badly. All the _optimization_ was totally independent of that de-skewing, and the de-skewing was a potential un-optimization. But if you do the optimizations as one independent set of patches, and _then_ do the counter thing as a "simplify logic" patch, I don't see that as a problem. Side note: I may be crazy, but for me when merging, one of the biggest things is "does this pass my 'makes sense' detector". I look less at the end result, than I actually look at the _change_. See? That's why two separate patches that do the same thing as one combined patch may make sense, even if the _combined_ one does not (it could go the other way too, obviously). Linus -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: email@kvack.org