Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:03:10 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@acm.org> To: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Another tool for updating /etc -- lua||other script language bikeshed Message-ID: <20100324190310.GC88991@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <hod31p$qlc$1@dough.gmane.org> References: <201003231108.45102.jhb@freebsd.org> <hod31p$qlc$1@dough.gmane.org>
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--tsOsTdHNUZQcU9Ye Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 2010-Mar-24 14:11:21 +0100, Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org> wrote: >Since the issue comes around very rarely, I assume there are not many=20 >people who also get the shivers when they see a shell script (and then a= =20 >"posixy" /bin/sh shell script) more than a 100 lines long? :) With the specific exception of GNU configure and related horrors, I personally don't have anything against shell scripts. You can write good or bad code in any language. >Wouldn't it be nice to have a "blessed" (i.e. present-in-base) script=20 >language interpreter with a syntax that has evolved since the 1970-ies?=20 There's awk (though it's somewhat restricted in its abilities to do anything more than text manipulation) but in principle, I agree. The requirements as I see them are (in no particular order): - BSD-compatible license - must be compatible with buildworld (primarily, it must be possible to cross-build) - contains a critical mass of users in the FreeBSD developer (and ideally committer) community=20 - language must be reasonably stable - will a script written today still work correctly in (say) 5 years. - must be acceptable to the vast majority of the user base (no religious wars allowed) >There was once Perl in base and even though I personally dislike Perl at= =20 >least it was a standard of sorts and guaranteed to be there if needed.=20 It was removed because it didn't support cross-building (buildworld is always done as a cross-build) and was evolving at a rate incompatible with the base system. >As a possible alternative, or at least to learn about others' opinion on= =20 >the subject, I'd like to suggest Lua (http://www.lua.org/). As someone who has never used Lua, how well does it meet the requirements above? --=20 Peter Jeremy --tsOsTdHNUZQcU9Ye Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkuqYe4ACgkQ/opHv/APuIcYmACgnZXiVf7uP+XXE0Ph8PleZUWl 0igAoJNWloUH0IN7445z3fiMsWdnBeLw =8XWf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --tsOsTdHNUZQcU9Ye--
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