Re: [PATCH]: C++ mangling patch that is about to be committed

[Daniel Berlin <dberlin at redhat dot com>]

Kevin Buettner <kevinb@cygnus.com> writes:

> On Oct 10,  8:33pm, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> 
> > gdb_mangle_name is a perfect example.
> > It has nothing to do with symbols.
> > All it does is take a type structure, a method id, and a signature,
> > and build a new mangled name for it.
> > It involves magical knowledge of how g++ mangles names.
> > It doesn't even have a struct symbol in it, or anywhere near it.
> > It isn't called except from a few C++ specific routines (cp-valprint
> > or typeprint calls it, and one other place that escapes the mind).
> > Of course, it's in symtab.c.
> > 
> > Are you starting to see my point?
> > The people i have to get approval for are really not qualified to
> > examine the patches.
> > No offense, but taking you as an example, it took you a while to
> > figure out what my changes were doing, and they aren't obsfuscated
> > code.
> 
> Hmm... "really not qualified"...?
> 
> Daniel, I don't think that this choice of words is the way to win
> friends and influence people.
> 
> If I read your implications correctly, then I am in complete
> disagreement with you regarding Elena's qualifications.  Specifically,
> when I've asked her for help in this area (gdb symbol tables), she's
> always provided good and useful answers.

No, i'm not implying what you think i'm implying.
I'm trying to say the area of expertise that gdb_mangle_name involves
isn't really "symbol tables", but "C++ mangling". It just happens to
be in symtab.c for no good reason.
AFAICT, it was originally in gdbtypes.c, where it doesn't belong
either.

It has nothing to do with Elena's qualifications, it has to do with
the area of maintainership this particular piece of code falls under.
It falls under the wrong area of maintainership, because of the file
it's in. Elena shouldn't have to waste her valueable time reviewing
patches like that, because trying to understand how to all of the C++
stuff fits together, and what a change to gdb_mangle_name will affect,
takes a *long time* for anyone to understand.  
 I was actually specifically referring to the fact that she mentioned it took
quite a bit of staring to figure out what the changes were doing. It
took me 3 weeks of staring to figure out that it was broken in the
first place. It's complex code, and it has nothing to do with symbol
tables. So why should Elena have to waste her time doing the staring?

Like I said, my point has nothing to do with Elena's qualifications.
She's quite qualified to review any piece of code.
That doesn't mean she should have to.
--Dan