From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 25 21:24:06 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 001151065701; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:24:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rivanr@gmail.com) Received: from mail-fx0-f210.google.com (mail-fx0-f210.google.com [209.85.220.210]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DCDD8FC22; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:24:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm6 with SMTP id 6so2339106fxm.43 for ; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:24:04 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=FKfJuebSGv9QRRCRgixShzruHosCURtgZJNydM5U4eg=; b=R7/ZaI/QQ8VBhQwQDgyKNdcB5VXw4Ohb1Sr+0QGWZ0ev8bFiesmcRJuszVaSuhpma6 7CBAj7whQyjVszuqgzGEa55Sz3fIQGRAtVghNs6Z4tv10M7/42Ly1yS+RyjWEdZx8FlI PCWX5RwgSyVlK4WVqB6PAytzy3igDkYhPhafI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject :references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=Elq0aQnGkBi5/EioRRyZ8XR4g/EtAcI08R0cDwc/IMAwAGoMW6vOpR81Q99/6kY0XK IzpLNXqqxXAD5cu7fYusN3RFfnoGu5b2ngoHmh70vsBAvQdjhhFABzhyIIiDm/aJvXEd AXXE5X9595azj4kam1zqf5AuaCHwNyAbq1uOA= Received: by 10.103.85.28 with SMTP id n28mr3034262mul.66.1251235444198; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:24:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from azdaja.softwarehood.com ([95.180.33.218]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id j2sm425638mue.50.2009.08.25.14.24.03 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:24:03 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4A945672.6010901@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:24:02 +0200 From: Ivan Radovanovic User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (X11/20090708) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alex Goncharov References: <20090825034054.2d57e733@dev.lan.Awfulhak.org> <4A94325D.6070201@FreeBSD.org> <4A9436A7.2020108@gmail.com> <4A94385A.1000405@FreeBSD.org> <4A943C18.2050103@gmail.com> <4A943D06.405@FreeBSD.org> <4A944370.2000306@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org, dougb@FreeBSD.org, brian@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Deprecating ps(1)s -w switch X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:24:06 -0000 Alex Goncharov napisa: > ,--- You/Ivan (Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:02:56 +0200) ----* > | > Feel free to take a crack at this and send the results to the list for > | > review. Improving the documentation is always a worthy goal. > | > > | I would do that for sure if everyone thinks this ps behavior is > | something that should be kept at current state even if it could be made > | better > `---------------------------------------------------* > > Don't know how you are going to find about "everyone", but I, for one, > think that modifying the established tool's behavior in the proposed > manner is an utterly bad idea. > > Use shell aliases, functions and scripts wrapped around the primary > tool to get the behavior you like -- let others stick with their > established habits and wrappers. > > Improving the documentation would be good, OTOH. > > Thanks, > > -- Alex -- alex-goncharov@comcast.net -- > I guess voting is going against me, so I would probably need to update that documentation :-) Please understand that my idea is to make tool behave as expected from its description - for example ls also formats its output according to terminal, but when you redirect it then it doesn't care about terminal (try "ls" and "ls | less"), that is what in the first place made me think that ps would behave in the same way (and btw, I still think that all non-interactive tools behave that way). And I also think that if we can make learning FreeBSD even little less difficult then we should do that. My point is if you are making tool for listing processes what you want is to LIST process (first, and most important), and later (if at all) to make that pretty formatted, after all it is unix philosophy to have small programs that do exactly one thing and that do it right - I think that philosophy is broken (because of historical reasons) with current implementation of ps On the other hand fixing ps's behavior in the proposed manner will for sure brake some scripts that depend on it, but if scripts depend on formatting behavior then those scripts are used only to display some information on the terminal and they would be easily spotted and corrected (are there scripts like that in the system - can someone point out and say "Hey XXX will be broken, and that will further brake YYY and so on"? Because I am beginning to think that maybe there is far less things depending on this behavior than expected... ) Ivan P.S. I am giving up of trying to explain my reasoning any more, I think I gave enough reasons for everyone to understand my motivation (although of course everyone has the right not to agree with me). I didn't want to offend anyone in this short discussion and if someone feels that way then I am truly sorry. Any pointers on how to update manual page for ps would be greatly appreciated, as well as some mail agreeing with my standpoint :-)