[gPXE] DHCP Client ID in gPXE 1.0.0?

[Marty Connor]

On 3/18/10 2:49 AM, Michael Brown wrote:
> On Thursday 18 Mar 2010 05:59:06 Marty Connor wrote:
>> Though I agree in general with the "#ifdef considered harmful"
>> philosophy that gPXE was designed and implemented with, I think patches
>> should be judged individually on their merits.
> 
> I absolutely, absolutely disagree on this.  The problem with #ifdef 
> proliferation is never any one patch.  Each individual #ifdef is generally 
> quite harmless in its own right.  The problem is that after a mere 32 harmless 
> individual #ifdef patches, each of which is fine when judged individually on 
> its own merits, you suddenly have 4 billion build combinations to test.

I understand (and generally approve of) your view on this, but design
purity is only useful to a point.

We may have some of the most subjectively beautiful code in the world,
but I believe we also must balance this design aesthetic with respect
for the needs of the people who use our code to do real-life things.

Automated testing is not a solution to all functional ills, and testing
all possible build combinations does not completely ensure that software
will function properly in real-world environments.  It certainly can be
useful, but should not, in my view, be too heavily relied upon.  We have
existed 15 years without such exhaustive testing.

> I'll give way on this issue the moment you build a quantum computer capable of 
> compiling and testing all 4 billion code versions simultaneously.  :)
> Michael

Your opinion is noted.  I believe you may be carrying your design
sensibilities too far in this case and thus I may accept a patch for
this issue, if it seems reasonable to me to do so.  I'd like to see a
patch, and hear other opinions before deciding.

I appreciate all that you have done to make gPXE the excellent piece of
software that it is, but yours is no longer the only voice that matters
when we decide what goes into gPXE.

I sincerely hope that you are able and willing to work cooperatively
with our growing team of developers.

Regards,

/ Marty /