As I look at how the ethernet device interface in DPDK has exploded in
complexity;
it makes life very hard for end users. The goal has been to enable all the
cool hardware
features, but it has put blinders on the driver devlopers; they are ignoring
the fact
that real applications can't just work on one kind of hardware.
The DPDK is doing a terrible job at providing abstractions. There needs to be a
real generic set of operations, and every hardware offload feature must:
* have a clear well defined API
* if feature is not available in software, then the DPDK must provide
a software equivalent feature.
* any difference in API must be hidden from application.
* no compile config options about offload.
* tests and documentation must work for both hw and sw version
Right now, all those offload features are pretty much unusable in a real product
without lots and lots of extra codes and huge bug surface. It bothers me enough
that I would recommend removing much of the filter/offload/ptype stuff from
DPDK!
