Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:37:27 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: Alexander Churanov <alexanderchuranov@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>, Leinier Cruz Salfran <salfrancl.listas@gmail.com> Subject: Re: make pkg_install suite reusable, please Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1004111235330.80625@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <q2x3cb459ed1004090736t5a67f315geca1c199a5061e7d@mail.gmail.com> References: <x2ta2585ef1004090716vf74893dfo9d5412455294c64d@mail.gmail.com> <q2x3cb459ed1004090736t5a67f315geca1c199a5061e7d@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, 9 Apr 2010, Alexander Churanov wrote: > 2010/4/9 Leinier Cruz Salfran <salfrancl.listas@gmail.com> > >> i want to ask you one thing: can you make the 'pkg_install' suite reusable >> .. means install 'libinstall.a' as a shared object in order to make it >> reusable by others devs > > I'd like to add my 50 cents. From my point of view, the true UNIX way is > re-using whole programs. This provides unbelievable isolation and > correctness. If you don't want to fork myriads of processes each second, > then, it's, probably, better to ask for pipe mode of pkg_* tools. For > example, aspell works that way. You start a process, write commands and > queries and read results. While there are clearly benefits to process isolation, there are countless situations in UNIX where I've said to myself "Oh, I wish I had a lib<foo> not just a <foo> command". This is particularly the case for monitoring tools, where third-party applications have a lot of trouble parsing and tracking the output of tools like ps(1), etc. This is why recently we've been working on libmemstat(3), libprocstat(3), libnetstat(3), etc -- so that tools can avoid rewriting that code as well as avoid the parsing problem. So I have no particular opinion on this tool, but I will say that in general, it would be nice if programs were often thin wrappers around a library that could be reused, not just command line tools. Robert
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?alpine.BSF.2.00.1004111235330.80625>