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Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:35:19 -0700
From: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>
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Cc: Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org>, Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>,
	Andrew Reilly <areilly@bigpond.net.au>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Interpreted language(s) in the base 
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On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:35:59 +0200 "C. P. Ghost" <cpghost@cordula.ws>  wrote:
> 
> But seriously, the point isn't so much which specific interpreter
> we use (if we go down this road), it's about libraries: most
> sysadmin tasks require some basic networking and I/O,
> and a FFI to seamlessly call out C functions from .so libs.
> 
> And, of course, instead of writing 1,001 sysadmin scripts
> with endless code duplication and reinventing of the wheel,
> common sysadmin tasks should also be made into reusable
> functions, grouped into modules.

Exactly what I had in mind.

> > And we don't have to argue about which language. I would
> > suggest setting up a wiki page to list all the system scripts
> > people want to write and get cracking in your favorite
> > language! May the best effort win :-) At the very least we
> > will get some useful tools out of this effort. =A0I will
> > certainly help out with Scheme.
> 
> Funny idea. I only hope we won't end up with a typical
> post-dot-com young developer distribution, a la:
> 
>   60% PHP (yuck!)
>   25% Java (and XML-everywhere)
>   15% ${OTHERS}
> 
> ;-)

If that is what people want then so be it :-)

But I think only "little" languages like forth, lua, sh, rc,
es & scheme have small footprint interpreters that start up
fast and are reasonably efficient.

Anyway, system programming in Scheme is what interests me and
something I already tinker with on and off. If anyone is
interested (in helping or just playing with it), let me know
privately (but *not* on this mailing list).