Re: [gentoo-dev] initscripts in python

["merv" <merv@spidernet.com.cy>]

I for one would enjoy the clean-feel of Python in initscrit composition.
That said, I would miss the very "Unix atmospherics" of awk and sed 
and the run-time interactivity of the shell scripting (I mean, it's potential 
for shorthand notation).

It may be a difficult one to call though.  I imagine that many would feel 
similar sentiments about the scripting advantages of both Python and 
shell scripting.  Maybe practicality would have the last say, however. 
On machines with very limited resources (I have a box running Gentoo 
on a Pentium 133Mhz and < 1GB harddrive with 64Mb RAM), Python 
would be a death sentence for the box.  Shell scripting is the only 
option in such environments for job control etc etc.

Perhaps we might experiment with a build-time option for incorporating 
*both* Python and shell scripting tools such as awk and sed in to the 
shell (by having the Python *shell extras* turned on/off via a 
compilation flag?).  In such environments both would be available for 
use as a shell scripting resource.  Or perhaps again, we might set 
about incorporating shell scripting notation in to Python and attempt to 
ferment a hybrid for shell scripting purposes, initscrits and the like.

Interesting idea that has made me think more closely about what a 
shell scripting language is and what it is for.

Will be good to see if this goes anywhere.

--Merv Hammer

On 15 Apr 2003 at 21:29, Justin Whitney wrote:

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


--
Merv Hammer
mailto: merv@spidernet.com.cy
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