Re: [RFC PATCH] trace2 API: don't save a copy of constant "thread_name"

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

I was commenting on the goal, i.e. you "may still be missing some context here, maybe there's a plan to ...", and I meant that the plan of the overall effort is something that is nice to learn before going further. I was not endorsing the method you are taking to achieve that goal, though.

FWIW, I find my code sent in as a comment easier to read than my prose alone for any topic, but that is only because it is "my" code is easy to read for "me". I am sure others would find it unnecessary burden to figure out what the alternative/replacement I send out intends to do and why it does so in the way it does, and would rather appreciate if I explained these things in prose that is easy to understand and rich in "why", which alternative/replacement code would solely lack. Code snippet helps illustrate points on "how", but is often a poor replacement for proper explanation because it is a bad medium to convey "why".

Same would apply to your code. For others, including me, it often is a lot of work to figure out what your code is trying to do, and more importantly why it does what it tries to do in the way it does.

After all, when you are having hard time communicating why you want to do things differently from the patch author in prose, code snippet would probably be the worst primary medium to do so, because it is full of "how exactly" with little "why".