Re: tutorial draft checked in

[Jim Keniston <jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com>]

On Fri, 2006-03-03 at 09:56, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> Hi -
> 
> I checked in a draft of the systemtap tutorial (/doc/tutorial).  It's
> 16 pages long at the moment, written in latex.  Let me know if you
> have trouble formatting it into ps/pdf.  I'll put up a snapshot at
> <http://web.elastic.org/~fche/systemtap.pdf> *temporarily*.
> 
> I welcome comments on organization, presentation, and content.
> 
> - FChE

Nice job.  It was fun to read, and should be a huge help to new users. 
Post it to the web site pronto.

Attached is a patch with suggested fixes and clarifications.

Other comments not reflected in that patch:

I didn't like the use of caps (rather than the usual italics) for
generic terms like STATEMENT.  I was especially confused by the use of
TAPSET in "Naming conventions."

I'd like to see one or more examples of probes set mid-function (i.e.,
specified by line number).  (Exercise for reader: Adjust the line number
to match your kernel version.)

Item #4 at the end of section 4.3: "Block" is a synonym for "sleep." 
"Spin" is the term you want.  And I'm not sure I agree that trylock/fail
is necessary when you fully understand the dangers of deadlock.

I edited out the use of "per-version."  An interesting word, but
distracting. :-)

I'm with Richard.  "Probepoint" is the spelling established by dprobes
and kprobes documents.  And it's consistent with "breakpoint."

Jim

Attachment: tutedit.patch
Description: Text document