Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] dt-bindings: spi: Qualcomm Quad SPI(QSPI) documentation

Quoting Mark Brown (2018-09-21 11:51:06)

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 11:40:24AM -0700, Stephen Boyd wrote:

quoted

It seems that everybody has misunderstood my email. Let me try to
clarify.

quoted

I'm not saying to replace the sdm845 qspi compatible with a generic one.
I'm recommending that a generic one is added in addition to the SoC
specific one. That way, we get to put the generic compatible string in
the driver and not need to update the driver compatible string array
each time a new SoC comes out with a new compatible string.

quoted

If it turns out later that we need to handle some bug in that specific
SoC compatible string then we're good to go and we can handle it by
matching the more specific SoC version compatible.

Right, the policy is generally not to have these strings at all.  IIRC
the argument is that they tend to either become unclear as the marketing
and technology changes.

Where is this policy documented? Is it on the list somewhere or written
in Documentation/devicetree/? From my read of Rob's comment in the
previous version of this patch, all that was asked was to add another
compatible string for the specific SoC.

I find the approach of picking the first SoC that the driver works on to
be obtuse. I don't want to be reading some SoC DTS and see another SoC
marketing number in the compatible string because it makes it confusing
to explain to someone that yes these different SoCs are related to each
other, but no, that SoC isn't this SoC. Sure it all works and everything
is technically fine, but my aesthetically pleasing alarms go off and I
don't see any particular downside to having two compatibles.

The upside is that things aren't confusing and drivers don't get
continual SoC churn updates because the compatible describes the SoC
(qcom,sdm845-qspi) and the programming model (qcom,qspi-v1).