I actually agree with everything you say, except that it is also a
management problem. If every third party hardware vendor out there was
screaming at Microsoft on a regular basis, and had been doing so for the
last six or seven years, about the sorry state of driver development, and
why it is at least partially Microsoft’s fault, then perhaps the great
behemoth would have responded earlier. As it is I think they actually are
responding, but not to external pressure, but rather to their own internal
awareness that there is a problem out here in driver developer land that no
amount of whql will help.
As long as the standard business model for driver development is ‘don’t
worry, be crappy, but be first’, not much is going to change.
Maybe my perspective is screwed by the last few years of working with a
company that for 20 years has regularly delivered systems with 5-9s
reliability, and is doing so, after nearly heroic effort, on x86 platforms
and w2k software. They didn’t do that with architectural magic bullets, they
did it with disciplined software development processes and a refusal to ship
crap.
–
Mark Roddy
Consultant, Microsoft DDK MVP
Hollis Technology Solutions
xxxxx@hollistech.com
www.hollistech.com
603-321-1032
For Windows Driver training see www.azius.com
“Bill McKenzie” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> >‘We’ are writing crappy drivers for at
> >least two reasons: some of ‘we’ are incompetent and don’t understand how
to
> >do this right, and a lot of our employers don’t give a rat’s ass about
> >reliability.
>
> > I didn’t say why many driver writers were incompetent, I simply
observed
> > that they are, and that little is being done at the management level to
> > change that.
>
> Ah, I mistook competance in general to competance in driver writing
> specifically in your argument. I guess my point is, many of the folks out
> there are completely competant coders, but they are working with an API
that
> is ill documented, ill demonstrated, and takes years to get right even if
> you have source access, (which I don’t BTW). This is not a problem you
can
> fix at the management level in most companies that need a driver written
for
> some application. You can send said competant coders to classes from now
> till the cows come home, (yeah I am from Texas), and it isn’t going to
solve
> the problem IMHO.
>
> I am absolutely amazed at how much the driver community at large still
> doesn’t ‘know’. For instance I think Tim Johns brought up the fact that
no
> where is it documented that you can safely call IoCallDriver in your
driver
> at DISPATCH_LEVEL for USB, 1394, SERIAL, et al busses. So, there is no
way
> to know this for certain without source access. This is forced
incompetance
> I guess. My assertion has always been and still is that the problem is
> information availability. The driver model is too robust, and the source
is
> closed which is fine, and I don’t have a problem with, provided you
document
> every piece of every API thoroughly, and provide really good samples.
> Otherwise yeah, people are going to write crappy drivers no matter how
> talented they may be and no matter what restrictions you put in place. I
> don’t see what any manager could do to fix this problem.
>
>
> All that said, I am definitely not saying that there are enough companies
> willing to spend the time and money to get their engineers trained. This
> lack is hurting everyone and I agree with that. I just don’t see it as a
> primary reason that there are crappy drivers out there.
>
> –
> Bill McKenzie
>
>
>
> “Roddy, Mark” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >
> > I didn’t say why many driver writers were incompetent, I simply
observed
> > that they are, and that little is being done at the management level to
> > change that.
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Bill McKenzie [mailto:xxxxx@bsquare.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:44 PM
> > > To: NT Developers Interest List
> > > Subject: [ntdev] Re: Philosophical Rant [was Re: Writing
> > > Drivers in Ja va]
> > >
> > >
> > > Mark,
> > >
> > > I think you have wholly missed the mark on why most drivers
> > > are crappy. The BIG reason is the API is way too robust,
> > > (read its way to easy to hang oneself). Add to this a SEVERE
> > > lack of documentation and samples and of course you are going
> > > to end up with a mess. I am surprised that all works as well
> > > as it does on the Windows platforms.
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>