Re: device syntax again

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Friday 21 January 2005 15:38, Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> Yes, we're impacting users because doing the right thing would be
> difficult.

I disagree strongly. How do you define what is the right thing? For me, 
the right thing is consistency in GRUB. I think you stick to your 
firmware too much.

You must consider the balance. How much does it impact users in reality? 
If you cannot do something because of this, I would agree with you. 
But, in this case, you just need one more step and it must be rarely 
required.

> I agree that a non-trivial amount of code would need to change, but
> there is perhaps a simpler alternative: choosing a separator
> character for each architecture that is guaranteed by spec to be ok.
> For example: #define GRUB_DEVICE_SEPARATOR ',' // x86
>       #define GRUB_DEVICE_SEPARATOR '|' // Open Firmware

Don't do it, please.

Hollis, I feel that your way of thinking is "GRUB should be a convenient 
way to wrap Open Firmware". However, I have heard that many people want 
to see GRUB in other architectures and their way of thinking is "I want 
the same features and the same interface on my architecture". 
Basically, they are interested in the user-visible part of GRUB. If 
GRUB provides a different interface for each architecture, what would 
they feel? I'm sure that they would be surprised and complain.

Okuji