From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jul 27 6: 7: 7 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from janus.syracuse.net (janus.syracuse.net [205.232.47.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7459F14D72 for ; Tue, 27 Jul 1999 06:07:03 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from green@FreeBSD.org) Received: from localhost (green@localhost) by janus.syracuse.net (8.9.2/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA47310; Tue, 27 Jul 1999 09:05:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: janus.syracuse.net: green owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 09:05:46 -0400 (EDT) From: "Brian F. Feldman" X-Sender: green@janus.syracuse.net To: Sheldon Hearn Cc: Soren Schmidt , Dag-Erling Smorgrav , hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: replacing grep(1) In-Reply-To: <12615.933078748@axl.noc.iafrica.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, Sheldon Hearn wrote: > > > On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:19:38 -0400, "Brian F. Feldman" wrote: > > > Getting rid of as much as possible, gradually, is a Very Good Thing; > > this is how we get stability and performance improvements. > > Only if the replacements are as stable and robust as their predecessors. Usually, when we get replacements, they are. > > In this case, the implementation we'll be introducing will introduce a > performance loss, not a gain. As far as stability goes, there's a loss > involved _if_ passing the GNU grep regression tests is important. Which it isn't unless they are truly correct in their assumptions of output behavior. > > Don't get me wrong. I'm all for replacing GNU software. Let's just be > realistic and keep in mind that being non-GNU doesn't necessarily mean > better. Not _necessarily_, but realistically... > > In this case, I'm all for the change, since I don't use grep for serious > regex work and the readability gain outweighs any loss of performance. > you probably feel the same way. Out opinions are those of developers, > though. It's always worth remembering that. That's true. I'd like to see the replacement grep do mmaping of the input files if it doesn't already, as that would speed it up. Anyway, I haven't tried it out yet because I haven't seen it hit 1.0 :) The only good pre-1.0 software I've seen has been the GIMP, XRacer, and some little utilities (like a program called stat(1)). That reminds me. I'd like to see something like stat(1) go into the source tree, but only if it were freely licensed, not GPL-infected. I could do it in a day, I suppose, if it were worth it. Worth it is here defined as "would be accepted to go in usr.bin." > > Ciao, > Sheldon. > Brian Fundakowski Feldman _ __ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ green@FreeBSD.org _ __ ___ | _ ) __| \ FreeBSD: The Power to Serve! _ __ | _ \._ \ |) | http://www.FreeBSD.org/ _ |___/___/___/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message