[gentoo-user] Re: star

[Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name>]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> Hello Alexander Skwar,
> 
>> Yes, it's very bad that Gentoo scripts don't limit themselves to
>> POSIX. Another windmill to fight against.
> 
> Artificially limiting yourself to the lowest common denominator when
> better options are available is bad, and discourages evolution.

Well, depends.

Making use of non standard options when standard compliant
options are avialable, is no-good evolution. It very much
tastes of the way Microsoft handles standards. Eg. have a
look at how MS treated Java or HTML (granted, Netscape wasn't
much better either).

Back to tar: Why use "tar -j" in scripts, when "bzip2 | tar"
does the same thing? I very much disagree that "tar -j" is
the "better" option here; in fact, I'd say that "bzip2 | tar"
is the better option, as it works on a lot more systems than
"tar -j" does. Heck, "tar -j" even does not work on all GNU
tar implementations, as very old GNU tars don't have bzip2
support at all and -j wasn't always used for bzip2.

> POSIX 
> specifies the minimum set of options and features, not the maximum. As
> long as the standards aren't broken, nothing is wrong, and adding new,
> useful and compatible features is one way that standards get improved.

No, it's not. To improve a standard, you make sure that the standard
gets amended and then you implement something. Not the other way around.

Alexander Skwar

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