Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 01:19:42 -0700 From: Jordan K Hubbard <jkh@queasyweasel.com> To: jos@catnook.com Cc: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Package system flaws? Message-ID: <C7D7163F-9894-11D6-BCA3-0003938C7B7E@queasyweasel.com> In-Reply-To: <20020716003456.GD54500@lizzy.catnook.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Guys,
If libh ever makes it off the ground, you can bet that Tcl will enter
the base system fairly rapidly since it will be required for everything
from bootstrapping packages onto the system to actually installing the
system itself. In such a case, you can also rest assured that Tcl
*will* have a more than justifiable purpose and I'm sure that even the
anti-bloatists will be forced to grudgingly concede the point. Their
principle, and successful, objection before was that Tcl entered the
base system long before there was such a demonstrable need for it and
it was justifiably kicked right back out again.
The issue with Perl is orthogonal since it wasn't quite as insinuated
into the brick-and-mortar foundations of the system (some of those
stray .pl admin scripts notwithstanding) and was much harder to
maintain than the _current_ releases of Tcl are. I also agree that Tcl
has had a rocky history in terms of its upgrade strategy ("it must be
Tuesday, time to break API stability again!") but, for better or worse,
development of the language seems to have reached a plateau with 8.4
and API stability ever since 8.0 was released has been pretty good, so
I think the old arguments are simply outdated.
In any case, the anti-bloatists can also leave their pitchforks and
torches in their closets for the time being since all of this is also
contingent on libh finally reaching the point where it is a truly
effective replacement for pkg_* and sysinstall, something which is
still a ways off if it happens at all.
- Jordan
On Monday, July 15, 2002, at 05:34 PM, Jos Backus wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 09:44:45PM +0700, Alexey Dokuchaev wrote:
>> We did have a very powerful one until recently -- Perl. I guess the
>> fact it was removed from the base is for a very good reason.
>
> I don't think ``we don't want a powerful scripting language in the base
> system'' was one of them.
>
>> Oh please, can you show us something essential for base enough that
>> could not be implemented in a sh/sed/awk way? I somewhat doubt it.
>
> portupgrade :-) (Sure, anything that can be done in Ruby can be done
> in C; no
> need to make that argument again).
>
>> 'cmon, it's pretty clear that Perl or Ruby is more of an overhead
>> than of
>> worth. Traditionally, UNIX lived for 30+ years without need for a
>> monster
>> like Perl or Ruby, in the base, clearly showing us that sh/awk/sed is
>> a
>> [very] decent scripting facility.
>
> As must be clear by now, I respectfully beg to differ.
>
> --
> Jos Backus _/ _/_/_/ Santa Clara, CA
> _/ _/ _/
> _/ _/_/_/
> _/ _/ _/ _/
> jos@catnook.com _/_/ _/_/_/ require 'std/disclaimer'
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
>
--
Jordan K. Hubbard
Engineering Manager, BSD technology group
Apple Computer
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?C7D7163F-9894-11D6-BCA3-0003938C7B7E>