Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:33:01 +0530 From: Manish Jain <invalid.pointer@gmail.com> To: bf1783@googlemail.com, FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: The question of moving vi to /bin Message-ID: <4A430505.2020909@gmail.com>
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> > If you want to make a case for replacing ed(1), you're going to have > to come up with some concrete reasons for doing so, not just make a > (long and hyperbolic) statement that you don't like it. > Any Unix tool has to clearly fall either under the category of non-interactive (grep, sed, ex) or interactive (vi, wget, sysinstall). The case of non-interactive tools is simple : just do what you are told on the commandline and exit. For interactive tools, at a minimum, the application has to be show what data it is working on and what it does with the data when the user presses a key (or a series of them). ed was never meant to be non-interactive, and it does not fulfil the basic requirements of being interactive. That's one reason. Secondly, how many times does an average commandline user even think of using ed when he needs to edit a file, even in the extreme case where there are no alternatives ? > There have been some recent changes: > > http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/base/194628 > <http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/base/194628>; > > that suggest that this problem is being addressed. Till the improvements are in place, we need the alternative of having vi under /bin rather than /usr/bin. Actually, it surprises me to what extent the core of the FreeBSD community is enamoured with this idea of a micro-minimalistic base, in which it is practically impossible to do anything except run fsck. Matters don't stop there. Seeing the limitations of this approach, the community churns up wierd workarounds like /rescue/vi, when all that was needed was shift vi from /usr. You talk about the need for compliance with old hardware and embedded systems to save a few kilos. How old is the hardware that you have in mind ? The oldest system running FreeBSD I know of is a 1997 Pentium with a 2 GB disk, and even that can easily withstand the change I am suggesting. Machines older than that are actually DEAD and don't have to be factored in. As for embedded systems, the primary target of FreeBSD is servers, workstations and *tops. The embedded world hasn't survived riding on FreeBSD, nor the other way round. So from the viewpoint of the greatest good of the largest number, over-indulging a mindset fixed around minimizing the base only leads to degradation, not improvement. Getting to boast of a 900K / won't do any good when people are thinking of having decent firepower (even while in single-user mode) and its ease of use. But I guess my words are of no use when the people who matter just won't listen. So I give any hopes in this regard. -- Regards Manish Jain invalid.pointer@gmail.com +91-96500-10329 Laast year I kudn't spell Software Engineer. Now I are won.
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