From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Aug 15 10:57:46 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24CA51065697 for ; Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:57:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ivoras@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qw0-f54.google.com (mail-qw0-f54.google.com [209.85.216.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B19A68FC0A for ; Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:57:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qwg5 with SMTP id 5so4812996qwg.13 for ; Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:57:44 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:mime-version:sender:received :in-reply-to:references:from:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id :subject:to:cc:content-type; bh=uXdH+0XPKbBJb8mVNPJeBxrnnIErmlRpmeCvhE2JM+g=; b=Ym4EFu1SFhgXthV0kYcnlGZI7X2uhP6cxlnczgGfNVoUxXH6VIKDe+0usa3+4JnprA pkABvS+avo5H3/g5QH4OsxJpuJE2DT9B8CFSEzvGqYjiLsj4LcmQdcSxy+9bhGgf/Mnb kVkMnYcVcsSkV5huoGcitEzKtR8MMMmEEQsb8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc:content-type; b=JQZ/UdwrYFCCHaSmqNoXmztSccQ73GXN8J1NRqic4i+2i82ADEZRTLKmjMWEE1ti71 wY3GRuqjC81uHjmvlx1O0xnfrPaeHvbRk/Y/drFnMKK5eA0+Wd0cJg4uA8usPaaduLNc PXrFlZ94cPy8F1XQfq97l/xi9P3dUIPVeY0xs= Received: by 10.224.96.150 with SMTP id h22mr2409238qan.173.1281869863112; Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:57:43 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: ivoras@gmail.com Received: by 10.229.236.132 with HTTP; Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:57:23 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4C673898.2080609@FreeBSD.org> References: <4C6505A4.9060203@FreeBSD.org> <4C650B75.3020800@FreeBSD.org> <4C651192.9020403@FreeBSD.org> <4C673898.2080609@FreeBSD.org> From: Ivan Voras Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:57:23 +0200 X-Google-Sender-Auth: ApNlzaNL4weHFZEqZxs5YnIXNOc Message-ID: To: Doug Barton Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Official request: Please make GNU grep the default X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:57:46 -0000 On 15 August 2010 02:45, Doug Barton wrote: > Ivan, > > I know that you mean this at least semi-humorously, however I'm going to > provide a dead-serious reply below. Thank you for your level-headed response - it's actually better than continuing less seriously or explosively :) Also, sorry for redirecting your thread but it provides me context. > Again, partial agreement. One of the reasons I resisted INDEX support > for so long was that my original idea of it was to do exactly what you > suggest here, parse it once then look up the data internally. However > even though I _can_ do this in shell it actually makes the performance > worse since now I've got his huge memory footprint to pass around every > time portmaster calls itself recursively (which for those who don't know > is portmaster's entire model of operation). This is my long-term point - it really would be beneficial to have an alternative, richer language in base which would fall between the categories of "a good system language but far too complex for simple string-parsing stuff" which is C and "a good glue language for system utilities but lacking more evolved concepts" which is shell. [skip the following section, I was going deep into wishful thinking territory] That said, I know it's useless to simply import something in the hope it will be useful in the future. My best bet is that I (or someone else) would write something useful enough to be imported in base in such a language, which would warrant importing the language itself. I also know that perl was there and was removed because of maintainance problems and clashing between user expecting it to be from ports and having an old version in base, so this potential new language will have to not clash with ports and not be used by installed ports by default. My current favorite is lua because it's very small and easily embeddable and extendable by C code, but there are others - some JavaScript engines probably fit the description. > BUT, none of that is germane to my actual argument. I was very careful > to NOT say, "BSD grep is slow, which screws up portmaster, so the > default has to change." What I said was, "BSD grep is anywhere from 6 to > 15 TIMES slower than GNU grep in all cases, so the default needs to > change." Yes, and I agree - having new grep which is about an order of magnitude slower then the old one is a bad situation.