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Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk> wrote: |
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> Hello Alexander Skwar, |
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> |
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>> Yes, it's very bad that Gentoo scripts don't limit themselves to |
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>> POSIX. Another windmill to fight against. |
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> |
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> Artificially limiting yourself to the lowest common denominator when |
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> better options are available is bad, and discourages evolution. |
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Well, depends. |
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Making use of non standard options when standard compliant |
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options are avialable, is no-good evolution. It very much |
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tastes of the way Microsoft handles standards. Eg. have a |
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look at how MS treated Java or HTML (granted, Netscape wasn't |
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much better either). |
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Back to tar: Why use "tar -j" in scripts, when "bzip2 | tar" |
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does the same thing? I very much disagree that "tar -j" is |
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the "better" option here; in fact, I'd say that "bzip2 | tar" |
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is the better option, as it works on a lot more systems than |
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"tar -j" does. Heck, "tar -j" even does not work on all GNU |
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tar implementations, as very old GNU tars don't have bzip2 |
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support at all and -j wasn't always used for bzip2. |
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> POSIX |
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> specifies the minimum set of options and features, not the maximum. As |
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> long as the standards aren't broken, nothing is wrong, and adding new, |
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> useful and compatible features is one way that standards get improved. |
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No, it's not. To improve a standard, you make sure that the standard |
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gets amended and then you implement something. Not the other way around. |
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Alexander Skwar |
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-- |
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