Intel Striving To Overhaul Their Multiple Ethernet Linux Drivers: "The Great Code Dedup"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Striving To Overhaul Their Multiple Ethernet Linux Drivers: "The Great Code Dedup"

Intel engineers maintain multiple Ethernet drivers in the Linux kernel for their wide-range of networking hardware from consumer to high-end data center wares. There's been an ongoing effort to overhaul their Ethernet driver management to reduce code duplication between the different drivers for better code sharing and with an end goal of more unification...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-DeDup-Ethernet-Linux-Driv

[bug77]

I wonder how they managed to get where they are. I don't shy away from duplicating code when it seems reasonable to do so, but I will always open a follow-up task to clean that up. Or at least insert a TODO in the code as indication for the next person.

The worst comes when you duplicate, don't de-dup and then people start adding various hacks to various instances of what was once the same code. That's a nightmare to get back into working shape.

[dlq84]

I wonder how they managed to get where they are. I don't shy away from duplicating code when it seems reasonable to do so, but I will always open a follow-up task to clean that up. Or at least insert a TODO in the code as indication for the next person.

The worst comes when you duplicate, don't de-dup and then people start adding various hacks to various instances of what was once the same code. That's a nightmare to get back into working shape.

Exactly

1. Make it work
2. Make it right
3. Make it fast

[hwertz]

Nice. I mean, imagine how bad it'd be with mesa drivers if, instead of iris and crocus, there were like 5 or 6 intel video drivers. I'm sure it'd get just as bug77 described, a fix or speedup would come in for gen6 gpus that would have worked on gen2-5 and 8 to current but was not put in their respective drivers.

[F.Ultra]

I wonder how they managed to get where they are. I don't shy away from duplicating code when it seems reasonable to do so, but I will always open a follow-up task to clean that up. Or at least insert a TODO in the code as indication for the next person.

The worst comes when you duplicate, don't de-dup and then people start adding various hacks to various instances of what was once the same code. That's a nightmare to get back into working shape.

How they got there is quite easy, common closed source proprietary way of working where you see each and every driver as a completely new project starting from scratch with a separate team. That is why we have so many products that is abandonware before they are even sold since they are developed in the fire and forget mode.

[ms178]

No love for igb?

[bug77]

How they got there is quite easy, common closed source proprietary way of working where you see each and every driver as a completely new project starting from scratch with a separate team. That is why we have so many products that is abandonware before they are even sold since they are developed in the fire and forget mode.

I don't think closed source has anything to do with it. Almost all the software I write is closed source, but I've never seen anyone duplicating things just for kicks. Haven't written device drivers though, maybe that's a different world. Though it still seems unlikely, there would roughly the same engineers working on them, because device drivers require more domain knowledge than most other pieces of software.

[Teggs]

highlander-swords.png

There can be only one.

But will the remaining drivers become progressively more powerful as they absorb the spirits of those they slay?

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

Exactly

1. Make it work
2. Make it right
3. Make it fast

pick one item ?

[partcyborg]

pick one item ?

The common joke is pick two