H. Peter Anvin wrote:

Mark Lord wrote:

quoted

Yeah, that would be just as good, really.  Maybe even better.

Mark Lord wrote (later on):

quoted

Instead, software has to search everything inside /sys/block/
looking for a "dev" file whose contents match,
rather than just trying to access something like this:

  /sys/block/8:1/start
or
  /sys/block/majors/8/minors/1/start

Or any one of a number of similar ways to arrange it. 

..

It shouldn't be under /sys/block... there are enough many things that 
scan /sys/block and assume any directory underneath it has the current 
format.

..

So long as we only add things, and not remove them, then any software
that scans /sys/block/ shouldn't care, really.

But yes, it could go elsewhere, too.
Perhaps a /sys/dev/ directory, populated with symbolic links
(or hard links?) back to the /sys/block/ entries, something like this:

   /sys/dev/block/8:0 -> ../../../block/sda
   /sys/dev/block/8:1 -> ../../../block/sda/sda1
   /sys/dev/block/8:2 -> ../../../block/sda/sda2
   ...

That's just a suggestion, really.
And what about character devices?

Perhaps Greg will chime in.