- Linus Torvalds added hidden tabs to Kconfig to challenge parsers that can’t handle them.
- Tabs were intentionally added to the common Kconfig file for page sizes to expose faulty parsers.
- Torvalds believes parsers unable to handle tabs shouldn’t be parsing kernel Kconfig files, aiming to force fixes.
I do the same to people who refuse to follow specifications they agreed to follow.
There is a slight satisfaction to get back at them for continually delivering much lower quality than is required.
But it really is to cover me. Because, it always happens, later in the future that edge case comes up, and everything breaks. And management is ready to blame me. But then I show them that I tested the edge case before the conclusion of the project. And that programmer ignored my emails, and that I told management these edge cases weren’t covered. But then management signed off on calling it complete. And suddenly management is no longer red with fury. And they usually won’t allow me time to fix it. So the can gets kicked down the road until the next time that edge case fails.
“if you can’t parse tabs as whitespace, you should not be parsing the kernel Kconfig files.” ~ Linus Torvalds
This is what we got after people sent him into PC training. The OG Linus would say something like “if you’re a piece of s* that can’t get over your a** to parse tabs as whitespace you should be ashamed to walk on this planet let alone parsing the kernel Kconfig files. What a f* waste of space.”
And honestly, I find his phrasing today far more damming with its conciseness. It screams leadership.
Well, I do miss the “fuck you mauro” livid linus, yes, nowadays he goes more for ‘brevity is the wit of soul’
I’ll take you up on that. ChatGPT, translate this commit message to actual Linus style:
Subject: Regarding Commit d96c36004e31
So apparently, this commit thought it was a brilliant idea to strip away a tab because some third-rate kernel config parsing tool couldn’t handle it. Seriously? We’re bending over backward for these tools now?
Listen up, if your parsing tool throws a tantrum over a tab, it’s time to rethink your life choices. Tabs are as fundamental to Kconfig files as oxygen is to humans. If you can’t handle tabs, you have no business parsing kernel configurations.
And let’s not pretend this is some isolated incident. The whole tab vs. space saga is like a bad sitcom rerun from the '70s. Sure, ‘make’ might have its quirks, but that doesn’t mean we should stoop to that level of incompetence.
I’m tempted to flood our Kconfig files with tabs just to prove a point, but let’s not make a mess where it’s not needed. However, if this idiocy persists, don’t be surprised if I start tabbing everything in sight.
Let’s get our priorities straight, people. We’re building a kernel here, not babysitting fragile parsing tools. So let’s fix this mess and move on to more important things.
I’m tempted to flood our Kconfig files with tabs just to prove a point, but let’s not make a mess where it’s not needed. However, if this idiocy persists, don’t be surprised if I start tabbing everything in sight.
This is genius.
The Register did a good article covering the change.
Source files should be conservative with the standard they expect from the developer, and parsers should be liberal in what they expect from the source, ie. allow deviations from the standard.
Python for example supposedly only allows 4 spaces for indentation, but as long as the developer is consistent most if not all Python interpreters will accept any kind of indentation.
Python for example supposedly only allows 4 spaces for indentation, but as long as the developer is consistent most if not all Python interpreters will accept any kind of indentation.
That’s a recipe for disaster as your syntax is under-specced. You’re right-up inviting programmers to produce programs with implementation-defined semantics.
Haskell (which also uses layout syntax) never had that problem as tabs were simply defined to be eight spaces, but that then led to issues with people setting different tab-widths in their editors and a flurry of syntax errors when they did “tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment”. Which is why Haskell then moved ahead to outlaw tabs, I think it’s still in the “throw a warning” phase but at some point it’s going to be a hard error.
That’s not to say that kconfig should do the same – presumably they used tabs for a good reason, and all those other programs are simply not following the spec. Essentially including unit tests in the actual production files is a good move when you’re dealing with that kind of situation.
Eight space indentation should be crime, I’m not made out screen width over here.
If you want to be strict with indentation, use tabs as your standard instead of forcing others to use your preferred visual width.
The Robustness Principle may seem like little more than a suggestion, but it is the foundation on which many successful things are based.
To boil it down to meme-level old-school Torvaldsry: Assume everyone else is a f–king idiot who can barely do what they’re supposed to and expect to parse their files / behaviour / trash accordingly.
If you do not do this, you are, without doubt, one of those f–king idiots everyone else is having to deal with. If you do do this, it does not guarantee that you are not a f–king idiot. Awareness is key.
Examples where this works: Web browser quirks mode; Driving a car; Measure twice, cut once. This latter one is special because it reveals that often, the f–king idiot you’re trying to deal with is yourself.
Assume everyone else is worse.
Fun corollary: In altering his behaviour towards
f–king idiotspeople who should know better, Linus has learned to apply the robustness principle to interpersonal communication.using a rly bad word but pretending not to is kinda weird
I don’t understand this either. There’s no fucking algorithm overlord here right? No fucking tiktok, youtube bullshit required.
If you want to say fuck, fucking say fuck.
On another note. Thx for introducing me to the robustness principle ♥️
Maybe I want to say it without saying it. There’s no rule against doing that, but people somehow think there is - or that there ought to be.
Most of the time I don’t swear, so it makes me uncomfortable to use the word. There have been and undoubtedly will be exceptions. When the mood takes me. When the word, unfettered, feels right. Today was not that day.
Funny how the partial omission offends some people more than the original word does. Adapt your parsers.
On the fediverse we do not have to worry about upsetting coka cola or spez because a swear appeared next to their advertisement or name. Not that many people care about that elsewhere, but we especially don’t care about it here. I think that’s worth calling attention to every once in a while. It doesn’t always have to be swears as the vehicle to remind us that the power dynamic is different here.
It’s fucking nice to be reminded there no corpo overlords here sometimes, though. Which is ironic that sometimes the foss benevolent dictators for life aren’t always benevolent.
You know you can say fuck on Reddit, right?
Can you say fuck spez?
Yes?
Sometimes it works well as a stylistic choice. It’s not pretending not to use a bad word, but rather drawing attention to the fact that you’re deliberately being a little bit naughty with a wink to the reader. It’s like the absurdity of what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.
