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On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> On 23/02/2014 20:18, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: |
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>> I don't think forking would attract much developers. Writing something |
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>> new trying to follow "the*nix design principles", but being modern and |
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>> with the same features (all of them optional, of course) of systemd |
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>> will have more chances; although I think it will fail because most of |
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>> the people that can code "better" actually like the systemd design, |
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>> and would prefer to contribute to it. |
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>> |
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>> And if you found enough of this mythical good-coders, good luck |
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>> defining what it means "the*nix design principles". |
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> |
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> I've been wondering about this concept of "the*nix design principles"... |
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> |
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> I've now concluded it's a myth, much like invisible pink unicorns. |
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|
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Exactly. |
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|
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> Is it like the kernel? A huge monolithic chunk of code with support for |
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> modules? |
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> Is it like X11? A huge monolithic chunk of code that has a bizarre build |
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> system for years, and took something like 5 years of hard work to get it |
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> modular? And is 20 years behind the times? And *still* requires devs to |
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> jump through hoops to get a rendered image through a compositor and back |
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> up the the GPU? |
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> Is it like perl? Support every possible way to do something if it |
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> remotely makes sense to do it, no matter how bizarre the syntax? |
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> Is it like python? Pick ONE way to do it and stick with it dammit! |
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> Is it like php? Do whatever you feel like? |
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> Is it like command line text processing tools that only do one narrow |
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> thing well? [1] |
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> Is it like bash? I can't find a decent description of how bash came to |
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> be except it's like Vogons - wasn't designed and didn't evolve, it just |
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> sort of ... congealed |
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> |
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> Not to rain on anyone's parade, but there's a prize of 40 internets up |
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> for the first person who can clearly and unambiguously define "Unix |
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> design principles" with specificity so that it is globally applicable. |
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> |
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> Best I can come up with is "Use common sense and build stuff that can be |
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> used and maintained" which is wonderfully descriptive but really sucks |
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> as a definition. |
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|
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I reached a similar conclusion; "Unix principles" is, basically, |
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whatever good idea you can have for a particular problem. Therefore, |
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almost anything under the sun can be reasonably argued to be following |
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"Unix principles". In particular, all of the examples you listed. |
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|
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"Unix principles" says nothing, means nothing, and helps even less to |
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design anything. |
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|
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Almost all the people criticizing systemd or Wayland are Unix *users*, |
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not *developers*. Most Unix/Linux *developers* (not package |
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maintainers) actually like the changes introduced by systemd and/or |
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Wayland; of those who not, most of them at least *understand* why a |
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change was necessary (and long overdue). A minority oppose those |
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changes vehemently; but at this point, I'm starting to question if |
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that opposition has technical foundations, or if it's just a gut |
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reaction to an specific set of developers and/or companies. |
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|
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> [1] For lack of a better term, let's just call systemd here a "system |
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> controller". What is this ONE thing a system controller should do and do |
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> it well? |
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|
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Control the system? |
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|
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Regards. |
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-- |
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Canek Peláez Valdés |
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Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación |
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Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México |