On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 03:44:48PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > The problem is whether we use struct head_page, or folio, or mempages, > we're going to be subsystem users' faces. And people who are using it > every day will eventually get used to anything, whether it's "folio" > or "xmoqax", we sould give a thought to newcomers to Linux file system > code. If they see things like "read_folio()", they are going to be > far more confused than "read_pages()" or "read_mempages()". Are they? It's not like page isn't some randomly made up term as well, just one that had a lot more time to spread. > So if someone sees "kmem_cache_alloc()", they can probably make a > guess what it means, and it's memorable once they learn it. > Similarly, something like "head_page", or "mempages" is going to a bit > more obvious to a kernel newbie. So if we can make a tiny gesture > towards comprehensibility, it would be good to do so while it's still > easier to change the name. All this sounds really weird to me. I doubt there is any name that nicely explains "structure used to manage arbitrary power of two units of memory in the kernel" very well. So I agree with willy here, let's pick something short and not clumsy. I initially found the folio name a little strange, but working with it I got used to it quickly. And all the other uggestions I've seen s far are significantly worse, especially all the odd compounds with page in it.
