From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 9 06:30:59 2011 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 826CB106566C for ; Sat, 9 Apr 2011 06:30:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhellenthal@gmail.com) Received: from mail-iw0-f182.google.com (mail-iw0-f182.google.com [209.85.214.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 343B58FC13 for ; Sat, 9 Apr 2011 06:30:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: by iwn33 with SMTP id 33so4908063iwn.13 for ; Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:30:58 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id :references:mime-version:content-type:content-disposition :in-reply-to:x-openpgp-key-id:x-openpgp-key-fingerprint :x-openpgp-key-url; bh=3ZcX6ctDxmYRX6DZtEgAm1TkiZvJh8wI9PcrfsKVgXE=; b=NvqdE+JZOmlB+D18rLhIjldGMa9Kwm6SK2HMdsvwaJaaFykoqBBQq4LCgRh2gBOKhq 18aw/qg43sXxWkYTMybeqk2n0Lvla00hvPBq3m55E4iK8y8g39FzYv2teJJKgLJrvXX6 ekNWbniGSuBrwz8mDBxXSb+Ngg6KZfVzm9xDw= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id:references:mime-version :content-type:content-disposition:in-reply-to:x-openpgp-key-id :x-openpgp-key-fingerprint:x-openpgp-key-url; b=QmNFgCarvkqsBwBonkAiVWV4SNvIm/wewPpzMztcuI72VxQymwElWwJy3YyAMSkwSJ o/3Nmg7c+ZYfxYcgDn7czygonYeUNXE4cYZ52JgLb2DJRNs6WccQseU48SSUgIphIUCE f9AlH8QLKkWOno2OfnQtCkLRZCCIuackRLk+8= Received: by 10.43.58.148 with SMTP id wk20mr4365835icb.242.1302330657979; Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:30:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from DataIX.net (adsl-99-190-87-163.dsl.klmzmi.sbcglobal.net [99.190.87.163]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id g16sm2407096ibb.37.2011.04.08.23.30.47 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:30:55 -0700 (PDT) Sender: "J. Hellenthal" Received: from DataIX.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by DataIX.net (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p396UjoC071878 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sat, 9 Apr 2011 02:30:46 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from jhell@DataIX.net) Received: (from jhell@localhost) by DataIX.net (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id p396UhMM071877; Sat, 9 Apr 2011 02:30:43 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from jhell@DataIX.net) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 02:30:42 -0400 From: "J. Hellenthal" To: Garrett Cooper Message-ID: <20110409063042.GB91335@DataIX.net> References: <4D9EFAC6.4020906@lazybytes.org> <4D9F2B8D.3040104@lazybytes.org> <20110409045453.GA91335@DataIX.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Bn2rw/3z4jIqBvZU" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-OpenPGP-Key-Id: 0x89D8547E X-OpenPGP-Key-Fingerprint: 85EF E26B 07BB 3777 76BE B12A 9057 8789 89D8 547E X-OpenPGP-Key-URL: http://bit.ly/0x89D8547E Cc: FreeBSD Hackers , Sergey Vinogradov , Mike Oliver Subject: Re: ifconfig output: ipv4 netmask format 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: Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:30:59 -0000 --Bn2rw/3z4jIqBvZU Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 10:33:17PM -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: >On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 9:54 PM, J. Hellenthal wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 07:36:45PM +0400, Sergey Vinogradov wrote: >>>On 08.04.2011 19:23, Mike Oliver wrote: >>>>On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 08:08, Sergey Vinogradov = =A0wrote: >>>>>Hi, hackers. >>>>>I have a question: why ipv4 netmask is displayed by ifconfig in hex fo= rmat? >>>>>Isn't dot-decimal notation more human-readable? Will the attached patch >>>>>break something in the very bad way? >>>> >>>>Who's using IPv4 anymore? =A0;-) >>>Long live IPv4! :) >>> >>>>Seriously though, if you give a small amount of time to learning the >>>>hex -> =A0binary translations then you would see how convenient it is to >>>>use hex rather than decimal when representing what are ultimately >>>>binary numbers. >>>> >>>>See this blog entry by Jeff Doyle... >>>> >>>>http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/how-are-your-hexadecimal-ski= lls >>>The article is great, but dot-decimal notation is de-facto standard >>>for stand-alone network mask representation. Like CIDR is standard for >>>IP blocks represenation. That's the reason I've started this thread. >>>And despite the greatness of the article you've mentioned, I think >>>it's a bad itea to hardcode its URL into ifconfig's output. You know, >>>for every single user reading it, and choosing the "way of hex" ;) >>> >> >> This is the year 2011 right ? when are we going to support new users >> rather than supporting old outdated washed up "scripts" ? >> >> I for one am for this change, given that there are lots of users from >> the PC-BSD community that do not read hexadecimal, octal and other such >> forms like a programmer does. >> >> And just because the change can be made does not mean that a >> compatibility shim cannot be put into place that restores the old >> functionality. >> >> >> It is time to stop living in the past and start thinking about the >> future. These types of things are what causes forks of projects to >> happen ultimately yielding in less contributors and developers. I for >> one hate to see things like that happen. > >I understand your pain and while I've been on your side of the fence >several times in the past dealing with different things of this sort, >having to maintain backwards compatibility is a painful reality of >past design choices or mistakes. pkg_install and sysinstall are one of >many examples, but there are of course other areas as well. > >Although I see the value of your and Sergey's argument, the problem is >that it may cause unexpected breakage for other third parties that >depend on a particular behavior in FreeBSD as Bjoern and others have >suggested; I have a script at least that does properly parse out the >hex output in order to set IPs properly with ipmitool, and I would be >perturbed to have to hack around this further in my script. Mind you, >this script is in my workspace, but having to track minor output >changes like this across versions of FreeBSD, or interface changes >like the semi-gratuitous removal of /dev/c in 8.x still had to >be worked out on many branches my group maintains at $WORK. > >Getting back on track, I think that more 'user friendly' variants of >FreeBSD, e.g. PCBSD, etc, could and should diverge with this one line >patch as they're not mainline FreeBSD and the change is trivial for >less hex inclined users as you suggest. > >Granted, this is just one of many bikeshed topics. Funny how many >lines of debate have been written and how many feathers have been >unnecessarily ruffled over the output of one printf. > Yeah I can agree with that. In either case right now (to me) it makes utterly no difference and is just a cosmetic fix as I can read hex, oct, dec in either fashion and convert between them quickly. I just hate to see other non-technical users fall subject to the same things that have been support way past a deprecation period that should have ended 10+ years ago. Anyway there are so many views on this, in any case the right decision is made going forth and positives and negatives can be discussed then. --=20 J. Hellenthal --Bn2rw/3z4jIqBvZU Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (FreeBSD) Comment: http://bit.ly/0x89D8547E iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNn/0SAAoJEJBXh4mJ2FR+Oe8H+gLwePnpZPTB6maCSkluopLF wuEZLBafAQun2uizxcJU21qq2FwKnlPhiM6xErXCsBTUguiGhHwpgeJahA58LCdO oMQiPcvWEfgVycV8lkSxVENsqAEEYCCbdyRyer0VklosL+1zUI06Cbj4aL0E0qZ3 xLwQuFKj3cJYO2NB9EBmS/u2GJRCiqC8ULsR5fKrrx59m2Ece2hQCV+DGJtHhCXB 8TpFoueISUErAFlV+Qoz5sEWwQa5o8geD3XD2039bPYhm8OasIbWQOCnE49s2lkh r+hKzMoXEIe+tWuty+jdZxmzU2oEkkYzj1bMeKkuc/25gKU8aVr1hJaGyvM8XDU= =5j+B -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Bn2rw/3z4jIqBvZU--