3 ms·

You don't even need an LLM for this stuff. GCC has the cleanup attribute, and kernel static analyzers like Smatch have been catching missing unlocks for a d

by KurSix 7mo ago

You don't even need an LLM for this stuff. GCC has the __cleanup__ attribute, and kernel static analyzers like Smatch have been catching missing unlocks for a decade now. People just ignore linter warnings when submitting patches, so the language itself isn't really the issue. The LLM is basically just acting as a talking linter that can explain the error in plain English

jeffbee 7mo ago
Linux doesn't have any of: sufficient testing, sufficient static analysis, or sufficient pre-commit code review. Under those conditions, which I take as a given because it's their project and we can't just swap out the leaders with more tasteful leaders, adding this type of third-party review feedback strikes me as valuable. Perhaps, to your point, it would also be possible to simply run static analyzers on new proposed commits.
- pvtmert 7mo ago
  To be honest, during my ~10 years of experience, I haven't stumbled on any _project_ that has _sufficient_ amount of either testing, static analysis, and/or, where everyone who contributes gives a damn about linter/formatter warnings or errors. Unless there is a CI that fails immediately when these checks fail, and it is not possible to bypass/override, then of course quality in the codebase improves significantly. But that is very hard to give business results, in terms of ROI, 99.9% of the PMs will sweep these under the rug, because of unclear ROI. Another remark I have to make is that, these things should be in a cloud/container (isolated environment) somewhere. Because I know several people who has their git commit aliased with no-precommit-hooks, because well, otherwise they complain that it is too slow. (Slowness is another issue that can be improved, but again, less visible ROI than just adding the command-line switch)

3 ms·

You don't even need an LLM for this stuff. GCC has the cleanup attribute, and kernel static analyzers like Smatch have been catching missing unlocks for a d

by KurSix 7mo ago

jeffbee 7mo ago
Linux doesn't have any of: sufficient testing, sufficient static analysis, or sufficient pre-commit code review. Under those conditions, which I take as a given because it's their project and we can't just swap out the leaders with more tasteful leaders, adding this type of third-party review feedback strikes me as valuable. Perhaps, to your point, it would also be possible to simply run static analyzers on new proposed commits.
- pvtmert 7mo ago
  To be honest, during my ~10 years of experience, I haven't stumbled on any _project_ that has _sufficient_ amount of either testing, static analysis, and/or, where everyone who contributes gives a damn about linter/formatter warnings or errors. Unless there is a CI that fails immediately when these checks fail, and it is not possible to bypass/override, then of course quality in the codebase improves significantly. But that is very hard to give business results, in terms of ROI, 99.9% of the PMs will sweep these under the rug, because of unclear ROI. Another remark I have to make is that, these things should be in a cloud/container (isolated environment) somewhere. Because I know several people who has their git commit aliased with no-precommit-hooks, because well, otherwise they complain that it is too slow. (Slowness is another issue that can be improved, but again, less visible ROI than just adding the command-line switch)