Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 09:23:55 +0000 From: David Chisnall <theraven@FreeBSD.org> To: Rui Paulo <rpaulo@me.com> Cc: Harrison Grundy <harrison.grundy@astrodoggroup.com>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Massive libxo-zation that breaks everything Message-ID: <AEB1CF1E-9429-4C86-A59E-E1C86C019098@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <75C49F53-C675-4712-A446-370025EED037@me.com> References: <54F31510.7050607@hot.ee> <54F34B6E.2040809@astrodoggroup.com> <CAG=rPVfcB1Fy_8mHq-t5Ay07yrzuSGthQ0ZcGzvp0XG9gSSzkg@mail.gmail.com> <54F35F29.4000603@astrodoggroup.com> <F1683E9A-6004-4749-BD6E-A5B2472F6C77@FreeBSD.org> <75C49F53-C675-4712-A446-370025EED037@me.com>
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On 1 Mar 2015, at 21:29, Rui Paulo <rpaulo@me.com> wrote: >=20 > On Mar 1, 2015, at 11:11, David Chisnall <theraven@FreeBSD.org> wrote: >> How would it be in a port? It involves modifying core utilities = (some of which, like ifconfig, rely on kernel APIs that change between = releases) to emit structured output. Maintaining two copies of each = utility, one in the base system with plain-text output only and another = in ports with XML/JSON output would be very painful. >=20 > It would work fine if we had *libraries* for = ifconfig/netstat/route/etc. Obviously that's not the case and no one = has stepped up to implement them. I've also seen FreeBSD committers = expressing their distaste for libraries for "trivial" command line = utilities, which implies they are unaware of another world beyond the = CLI. :-) I am completely in favour of libraries for the underlying functionality = of these commands and would love to see all of the system management = commands become thin wrappers around a library, though it's a lot of = engineering work. In particular, these libraries will need to have = stable APIs that we can support across multiple major releases, and = getting those right is difficult. We really don't want to be stuck in = 10 years maintaining a hastily designed API for a library. I see one use of the libxo output as helping to design those APIs. = People are going to wrap various tools in libraries for their favourite = scripting languages and this will give us a corpus for experimenting. It's also worth noting that often invoking a tool and consuming its = output is the easiest way to get a stable API and ABI where performance = is not a primary concern (i.e. most management interfaces). As to a world beyond the CLI, I saw a nice demo a few years ago of a = terminal emulator that used WebKit and came with a hacked-up set of = parsers for common tools. I'd love to have something simpler (no need = for a full WebKit - simple outline and table views would be enough and = could be done with curses for ssh) for FreeBSD where I could type ls in = the CLI and get a table view that I could then sort and filter by = selecting column headings. Those of us that have used Lisp and = Smalltalk environments know that a CLI doesn't have to be a teletype = emulator. David
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