The kernel is actually not that large, all things considered (and why should it be, it's the freaking kernel). Although, it certainly seems the largest "profess

The kernel is actually not that large, all things considered (and why should it be, it's the freaking kernel). Although, it certainly seems the largest "professionally-engineered" source tree that I can think of. Greg's paper has a funny quote that's worth drilling out: "The original authors of UNIX placed their braces with the opening brace last on the line, and the closing brace first on the line, like: if (x is true) { we do y } Because of this, the kernel will be written in the same style." The reason is still arbitrary but I can certainly respect why that arbitrary decision is better than others.