From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IoLiD-0002Gh-GL for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:19:05 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.1/8.14.0) with SMTP id lA3GI75S002561; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:18:07 GMT Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.1/8.14.0) with ESMTP id lA3GGA63032617 for ; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:16:10 GMT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0050765009 for ; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:16:10 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: 0.443 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.443 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.514, BAYES_05=-1.11, RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO=2.067] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id wKw5OmhR0+ye for ; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:16:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 615F66554E for ; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:16:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1IoLf7-0004WC-Gd for gentoo-dev@gentoo.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:15:53 +0000 Received: from 82.152.172.156 ([82.152.172.156]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:15:53 +0000 Received: from slong by 82.152.172.156 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:15:53 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org From: Steve Long Subject: [gentoo-dev] Re: POSIX shell and "portable" Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:19:28 +0000 Message-ID: References: <472B29B9.50002@gentoo.org> <200711021730.21089.bo.andresen@zlin.dk> <1194022333.3029.3.camel@uberpc.marples.name> <200711021817.32146.bo.andresen@zlin.dk> <1194024908.3029.6.camel@uberpc.marples.name> <20071103001922.GD1907@gentoo.org> <1194051966.16405.16.camel@uberpc.marples.name> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.152.172.156 User-Agent: KNode/0.10.4 Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: 250c383d-fb7e-43a5-8cb1-999beac66c92 X-Archives-Hash: e6ae5eb68f3a5e82b36db32f5cc3d4fc Roy Marples wrote: > On Sat, 2007-11-03 at 01:19 +0100, Fabian Groffen wrote: >> Please stop calling it "more portable". The shell code you see in >> configure can in a way be called "portable". Your POSIX compliant stuff >> isn't. In fact, by stating #!/bin/sh you actually make the code useless >> on a number of platforms, where it would have been working fine if there >> just were #!/bin/bash there. >> >> It seems to me that you actually mean "more FreeBSD-able" or something, >> which is a high price to pay for a relatively small part of Gentoo as a >> whole. > > Another way of looking at it is that you're forcing specific tools on > people, where I am asking people to use standard POSIX tools. > No, you're waging a campaign to get all Gentoo ebuilds in sh, by pointing out how certain constructs can be rewritten in sh. If your campaign is successful, all Gentoo devs will be forced to write in sh. Saying it's standard when the standard is a) pretty old and b) pretty minimalistic doesn't make it a tool "that's up to the job". > I guess it's because I'm an Engineer and you probably aren't. If the > tool isn't up to the job, then fix the tool. If the tool doesn't claim > any standards compliance then feel free to change it. > Er there are two conflicting statements there. The *standard* isn't up to the job, in that use of the sh syntax you promote leads to longer maintenance times and increased likelihood of bugs, since the code is counter-intuitive (aka fugly ;) As Mr Copa said "bash itself is portable." As a _software_ engineer I am vehemently opposed for the reasons given. The reason for my vehemence is that I don't want to see Gentoo devs spending extra time working around limitations in sh (which is a *base* standard) when really there are /far/ better technical ways round getting, say, ebuilds installed on a Linux Phone (and I have seen *no* other use-case which merits use of sh in package management; it's hardly our core user-base, is it?) -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list