On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 03:14:50PM -0800, Greg KH wrote: > On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 11:16:56AM -0600, mikem wrote: > > I'd also like an (brief) explanation of why ioctls are so bad. I've seen > > the > > reasons of them never going away, etc. But from the beginning of time (UNIX) > > ioctls have been the preferred method of user space/kernel communication. > > That's because there was no other method. See the lkml archives for why > ioctls are considered bad, I don't want to dredge it up again.
Here's a quote from the official syndicated kernelnewbies fortunes file (http://www.kernelnewbies.org/kernelnewbies-fortunes.tar.gz ): "Basically, ioctl's will _never_ be done right, because of the way people think about them. They are a back door. They are by design typeless and without rules. They are, in fact, the Microsoft of UNIX." - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel For the full story, see http://lkml.org/lkml/2001/5/20/81 . Erik -- +-- Erik Mouw -- www.harddisk-recovery.com -- +31 70 370 12 90 -- | Lab address: Delftechpark 26, 2628 XH, Delft, The Netherlands - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
