Re: [gentoo-dev] Init replacement

[Wesley Leggette]

On Sun, 2003-05-04 at 13:12, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-05-04 at 18:05, Wesley Leggette wrote:
> > On Sat, 2003-05-03 at 05:05, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2003-05-03 at 11:08, Wouter van Kleunen wrote:
> > >
> > > > Yes. I have thought of adding a script-service. But i removed it, because
> > > > i do not like scripts. I agree that they are convenient for executing a
> > > > collection of commands, but bash is a very weak programming language.
> > > >
> > > > I will think about adding scripts. Maybe just to lower the difference
> > > > between my init and sysvinit. But rather not bash, bash is ugly :-(
> > > >
> > > > it would be nice if people wrote more scripts using functional languages.
> > > > (haskell, miranda, etc...)
> > > >
> > >
> > > Point is, where say 80% people can code in sh/bash, much less can do
> > > that in python, haskell, whatever.  Thus dropping the 'user' interface
> > > to the init system being in bash/sh, will make it unusable for many
> > > users.
> >
> > Oh come on. Like XML is really than difficult. I'm sure 80% know the
> > syntax, and Wouter's keywords are a lot simpler than Bash's. Besides,
> > 80% is completly off for people who know bash (and XML syntax too).
> > Let's face it. Wouter's XML is a lot easier for newbies to learn. It has
> > actual english in it. I don't see why everyone is so defensive about
> > their beloved bash scripts.
> >
>
> Why are you so defensive about XML ?  Anyhow, you missed the point
> totally, as I have not even talked about XML.

Is your point that bash is easy to use and that changing things will
make the system unusable? Both are valid, sure. It is important for any
new system to work well with the old bash scripts until everything is
available in both formats (or forever, for that matter), so an XML based
system should work well with the older one. On the other matter, I can
see why you're saying that bash scripts are easy.

My point is that I think that bash scripts aren't as easy and human
readable as people give them credit for. Sure, a lot of people know how
to read bash, so to them it's easy. But I'd argue that bash has a higher
learning curve than XML does, since XML has a lot more english in it.

As for the other scripting languages you mention, I don't think that's
relavant because nobody's suggesting converting to python or haskell. As
far as I can tell, the suggestion is to use XML. That's why I brought it
back up.


>
> > >
> > > Having the startup scripts/modules binary though, means you cannot
> > > do quick changes, etc as well.
> > >
> > > And like many others did say, python/whatever have too large
> > > dependencies.  For example, having python initscripts will make
> > > an initrd/diet_system a PITA to get running.
> > >
> > > Having SVC support build into init, now that is a reason why I would
> > > change init.
> > >
> > > Another question that bothers me ... if everybody is so against bash
> > > being slow, why don't they spent time to get bash's IO more optimised?
> > > For example, getting bash to read the whole script, and then executing
> > > it, and not reading line by line should already add much improvement.
> > >
> > >
> > > Anyhow, just a few quick thoughts,
-- 
Wesley Leggette <wleggette@××××.net>


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