Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:23:22 -0700 From: Doug <Doug@gorean.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What to tell to Linux-centric people?! Message-ID: <37A0E26A.65662229@gorean.org> References: <199907292311.QAA12642@usr06.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > It's easy to do a /reductio ad absurdum/ argument on such a > basis, and prove the major premise false. *Nod* That's why I didn't bother. > To extend your craftsman/tool analogy, I blame the tool for > being a poor tool if it leaves tool marks on the work. You can redesign the tool to a certain extent, but eventually it comes down to how it's used. > We can drag in the "x86Open" thread now, with the point that > it really doesn't matter if you define a universal ABI that is > supported by all x86 UNIX and UNIX clones if you can't turn > off the platform specific extensions. You can't write code > that even _accidently_ uses a platform specific extension, if > your intent is to write portable code. That would be a great tool, and you could argue that bash in 'sh mode' is almost that, except that depending on how fine you cut it I could make the argument that there are at least 3, and maybe even 5 different versions of "the true bourne shell," and up till recently there were some POSIX sh things that we didn't even support on FreeBSD. Of course, the most persuasive argument inre the problem of non-portability is the fact that it's easy to prove that the same people who abuse portability now would continue to do so no matter how good the tools were to avoid these problems because those people are completely ignoring the tools that do exist now. 42, Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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