Re: Call for ideas for future musl-related talks

[Justin Cormack <justin@specialbusservice.com>]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:04 AM, Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org> wrote:
> After having done a couple conference talks already at Ohio LinuxFest
> 2013 and 2014, I'm considering pursuing more conferences, but I'm not
> sure what topics/framing would be most interesting and effective at
> getting more people interested in musl. If there's anything special
> you'd like to hear me give a talk on, or think would be constructive
> to the project, reply and let me know.

Apologies for not getting back sooner.

I think the most interesting topic for a talk for a generalist
audience is to cover the kinds of bugs you write about on ewontfix. (I
wouldn't talk about systemd though, it is too partisan for people to
listen clearly).

The focus should be around techniques for writing better software,
better specifications, and how to find problematic areas. And about
how writing tests for these things is hard, because a lot of them are
races, although talking about where tests do and dont work is good
too.

A title could be:
Finding bugs in glibc by writing a better libc
Better code by design, thought, and hard work

A structure like:
1. What is Musl and why did I start writing it
2. Libc bugs are like compiler bugs they really ruin your day
3. Go into some detail as per ewontfix on 1-3 bugs as per ewontfix
depending on talk length
4. How to spot potential bugs: code inspection, tests
5. Why Musl is less buggy than glibc: size, consistency, structure etc
6. Working with specifications, feedback, clarification
7. Musl is great, how to get started with it

Happy to feedback on any drafts.

Justin