Tuesday, June 15, 2010

driver configuration option madness


xf86-input-synaptics $> git grep "xf86Set.*Option" | wc -l
71


xf86SetIntOption, xf86SetBoolOption, etc. are the server's API to query configuration options. The touchpad driver has 71 one of them (rough count, one is counted twice but three are missing due to abstraction, so it's actually 73 then). I wonder how many of them are actually in use.

Carrying them around isn't really expensive. Good programming practice is to have all these set through variables or defines anyway so you might as well make those configurable. But still, over 70 options in a single driver?

At some point, we should start focusing on making the driver better by default instead of just throwing new configuration options at it. Any time the user has to change from the default configuration, we have failed.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I like this idea very much:
"Any time the user has to change from the default configuration, we have failed."

But then there are also 'personal opinions'. I know people that
a) Can't live without tap-to-click
AND
b) Can't live with tap-to-click

e.g. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/3958/

Anonymous said...

I agree with the sentiment, but would also like to add a second one: "Any time the user wants to change from the default, and cannot do so, we have failed".