From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 7 16:23:47 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2CE2E16A4DF for ; Thu, 7 Sep 2006 16:23:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bv@bilver.wjv.com) Received: from wjv.com (fl-65-40-24-38.sta.embarqhsd.net [65.40.24.38]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F46A43D67 for ; Thu, 7 Sep 2006 16:23:39 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bv@bilver.wjv.com) Received: from bilver.wjv.com (localhost.wjv.com [127.0.0.1]) by wjv.com (8.13.7/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k87GNaxM094968 for ; Thu, 7 Sep 2006 12:23:36 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from bv@bilver.wjv.com) Received: (from bv@localhost) by bilver.wjv.com (8.13.7/8.13.1/Submit) id k87GNPBm094967 for freebsd-current@freebsd.org; Thu, 7 Sep 2006 12:23:25 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from bv) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 12:23:25 -0400 From: Bill Vermillion To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20060907162325.GJ94278@wjv.com> References: <20060907120055.91D8A16A54D@hub.freebsd.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060907120055.91D8A16A54D@hub.freebsd.org> Organization: W.J.Vermillion / Orlando - Winter Park ReplyTo: bv@wjv.com User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, SPF_HELO_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.1.3 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on bilver.wjv.com Subject: Re: Adding a 'D - date' option in 'cat' X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: bv@wjv.com List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:23:47 -0000 On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 12:00 , freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org moved his mouse, rebooted for the change to take effect, and then said: > Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 01:08:18 -0400 > From: Garance A Drosihn > To: bv@wjv.com, freebsd-current@freebsd.org > At 11:09 PM -0400 9/6/06, Bill Vermillion wrote: > >That's pretty much the basic Unix philosophy - a lot of small > >programs that can be chained together to do almost anything you can > >imagine, instead of putting all the POSSIBLE needed options into > >each program that MAY or MAY NOT need it. > Well, the proposed option to `cat' is already dead, but just > as an aside: Good - from my POV. > Notice what happens when some issue like this comes up. The > unix philosophy is supposedly to champion lots of small utility > programs. An issue like Julian's comes up, where no *small*, > well-designed utility can get the job done. What does everyone > suggest? Why, "Just load up a turing-complete multi-megabyte > executable like Perl [which FreeBSD won't even include in the > base OS because it's too much of a hassle], and then write/debug > your own perl script which can handle your job!". Perl was taken out for good reason - and was documented as to why. It just grew and grew and grew until it was truly bloated. Many of the scripts used to compile/install FBSD used Perl, and those were all re-written to be shell scripts. I've installed BSD on very small machines - basically used as firewalls - and Perl was absolutely NOT NEEDED. Putting a sysmlink from /usr/bin/bin pointing to /usr/local/bin/[current Perl version] was a good idea, and this way and the /usr/local/bin/use.perl let you choose which one to use. > Uh, perl is not a small utility program. The fact is that unix > doesn't really deliver on it's own philosophy. Unix wizards > constantly punt user questions off to *massive* programs which > have a billion options. There is something very inconsistent > in that. I don't see that. But then again I moved to Unix in 1983 - and got away from all the bloat and crap that others but in their OSes. And my first contact with BSD type systems was in NeXTStep - which had a lot of BSD in it - and when running at a command line it was just like BSD for the most part. And after spending many years supporting Unix [not BSD] System III [and one earlier] and System V.X environment, I've come to truly appreicate the lean-ness of FreeBSD and it's consistant design philoophy - which >usually< follows the man 7 hier quite well. The last Sys V.x system I worked on daily - with sometimes long hours - were a small amount of SGIs for an ISP years ago. We moved from IRIX to FreeBSD 2.7 [or some nearby version] on Intel chips that were clocked slower than the RISC chips on the SGIs, and from the Netscape Web Servers to Apache and found drastic performance improvement. Not everyone needs a system with all the bells-and-whistles ever invented and many want a sysstem that can be made small and compact and eliminate things not needed. That last small BSD I installed was on an 800MB drive that left me 400MB user space. So many other OSes just give up when given something that small. I'm not a Unix guru - but have been working with it long enough as a system-admin-for-hir to appreciate the lean-and-mean approach. And as an aside the kernel in a server I'm just building up with 6.1-RELEASE has a kernel that is larger than the total distribution of my first Unix based system - a Xenix system on a 68000. That was so BSD like [an early Xenix] that when you compiled thins from places such as alt.sources.unix all you had to do was specify the system as CSRG compliant and all went well. Bill -- Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com