From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932693AbXIMVd5 (ORCPT ); Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:33:57 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757797AbXIMVdt (ORCPT ); Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:33:49 -0400 Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:51122 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754779AbXIMVdt (ORCPT ); Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:33:49 -0400 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:33:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: David Howells cc: viro@ftp.linux.org.uk, hch@infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Credentials test patch In-Reply-To: <1839.1189718341@redhat.com> Message-ID: References: <1577.1189713412@redhat.com> <1839.1189718341@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 13 Sep 2007, David Howells wrote: > > > Why is it trying to make it look like a variable? > > Like 'current' for instance? "current" has solid *historical* reasons for being that way. Namely: it actually *was* a variable. That worked fine for UP. It got changed much much later. Also, even in modern times, "current" is optimized to hell and back, and is often as cheap (or cheaper than) a global variable, so there is also no subtle performance question. So using "current" as an excuse is not really valid. AT ALL. Linus