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Hi, |
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I don't really like talking about these kinds of vague ideas (like I'm |
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doing here), because that doesn't get them written - but this one I want |
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feedback on first before I dive in... so... |
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For a lot of reasons I'd like to implement the initscrits in something |
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other than shell script. Something like python, say. |
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Reasons for doing this would include: |
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*writing (advanced) shellscripts requires learning awk/sed, and various |
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other minor tools (mostly because their features aren't supported by the |
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language). Use of a language with these features builtin lowers the |
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learning requirement, or at least puts it all under one roof. |
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*improved performance and bytecode-compilability |
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*Speedups due to fewer exec calls (for awk/sed/etc) |
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Reasons NOT to do this would include: |
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*breaking from standard would mean packages with provided initscripts |
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would require a rewrite. |
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*slight increase in boot requirements (interpreter and libs must exist |
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at least minimally on root partition) |
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*probably needs a bit more memory |
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other bits: |
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*compatibility could obviously be maintained, as existing shell scripts |
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could still be run without changes. |
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Note: I am by no means proposing this as a standard feature of gentoo. |
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That said, since gentoo already uses python for portage, selecting |
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python as the language to use makes sense. Aside from the re-writes, |
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and some other details, I don't see much disadvantage to the above |
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design. |
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Comments appreciated. |
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--Justin Whitney |
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-- |
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