On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Joe Perches [off-list ref] wrote:

On Sat, 2016-01-30 at 09:51 -0800, Eric Dumazet wrote:

quoted

On Sat, 2016-01-30 at 12:05 -0200, Lucas Tanure wrote:

quoted

On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Patrick McHardy [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On 30.01, Lucas Tanure wrote:

quoted

As suggested by checkpatch.pl:
CHECK: Prefer kernel type 'uX' over 'uintX_t'

You might have noticed we have literally hundreds of them spread over 100
files in the netfilter code. We'll gradually change them when the code is
touched anyways.

quoted

 net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.c | 5 ++---
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

Yes, I checked that. But would be better to change that now?
Because:
- could take years to anyone to touch the code, as the code already
works very well
- be more standardized could facilitate reading the code
- It's a good way to encourage new people to contribute to the code

Thanks!

These changes are a pain for people having to constantly backport fixes
into stable kernels, or rebase their patches before upstream
submissions.

Things like 'git cherry-pick' , 'git rebase' no longer work.
This is a huge pain, and manual editing to resolve conflicts often
add bugs.

Really, do you believe the 'uX' over 'uintX_t' stuff really matters for
people working on adding new features and fixing bugs ?

I am certain that if you had to work like us, you would quickly see the
utility of such changes is negative.

Sure, new submissions should be clean, but 'fixing' old code is not
worth it.

That might depend on whether or not the linux kernel is
a "long-life project" and whether or no any old branch
of it is also important and sufficiently long-life.

The active life of a backport branch for the linux kernel
seems to be 3 or 4 years.  The linux kernel will likely
be useful for a few more decades beyond that.

Complex and long-life projects like the linux kernel
might benefit more in code complexity reduction patches
like these rather than code stasis for backward porting
ease.

In general, arguing for stasis leads to ossification,
slow decline.

Change for change's sake is poor, but changes to reduce
complexity, improve maintainability (for some measure of
it) and especially improve performance should be
welcomed where feasible.

My goal was to improve maintainability for the code, and with time,
contribute with meaningful code.
As you might have noticed I didn't fix every checkpatch.pl warning and error.
I just sent the ones that I thought would improve the maintainability.

And backport fixes will always be a pain, no matter what.

Thanks for all the comments.
Sorry for anything.