Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 12:29:04 +0400 (DST) From: "Sergei S. Laskavy" <laskavy@cs.msu.su> To: TLiddelow@cybec.com.au Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, thorpej@nas.nasa.gov, freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org Subject: Re: bin/4154: wish /bin/sleep handled fractions of a second. Message-ID: <199707250829.MAA27045@ns.cs.msu.su> In-Reply-To: <33D7EC96.12F89534@cybec.com.au> (TLiddelow@cybec.com.au)
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Liddelow <TLiddelow@cybec.com.au> writes:
Wat do you think about the
POSIXLY_CORRECT
environment variable?
Tim> Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
>> Erm, you're sorta missing the point. This is not about
>> upwards compatibility - this is about taking a BSD script and
>> later trying to port it to, say, Solaris. Portability cuts
>> both ways, and there's no advantage to be gained by turning BSD
>> into a roach motel, where code can get in but, once "BSD-ized",
>> never leave again.
>>
>> In this particular case, if you have a script which says
>> something like:
>>
>> foo sleep 0.8 bar sleep 0.9 baz
>>
>> And you bring it to a non-BSD system, it will not sleep _at
>> all_ since the other system sees "sleep 0", and that could be
>> bad depending on what bar and baz do. This is exactly the kind
>> of interoperability problem that POSIX was intended to try and
>> solve. Let's not fight it.
>>
Tim> I do see your point. As an avid FreeBSD user and hacker, I
Tim> want to see compatibility and I push this in my travels.
Tim> What I should have said is that perhaps if you want or need
Tim> extra features you need to somehow push standards bodies
Tim> (pipe dream?) or write a portable shell work-around.
Sergei S. Laskavy
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199707250829.MAA27045>