Re: [gentoo-user] Debian just voted in systemd for default init system in jessie

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On 23/02/2014 20:18, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> I don't think forking would attract much developers. Writing something
> new trying to follow "the*nix design principles", but being modern and
> with the same features (all of them optional, of course) of systemd
> will have more chances; although I think it will fail because most of
> the people that can code "better" actually like the systemd design,
> and would prefer to contribute to it.
> 
> And if you found enough of this mythical good-coders, good luck
> defining what it means "the*nix design principles".


I've been wondering about this concept of "the*nix design principles"...

I've now concluded it's a myth, much like invisible pink unicorns.

Is it like the kernel? A huge monolithic chunk of code with support for
modules?
Is it like X11? A huge monolithic chunk of code that has a bizarre build
system for years, and took something like 5 years of hard work to get it
modular? And is 20 years behind the times? And *still* requires devs to
jump through hoops to get a rendered image through a compositor and back
up the the GPU?
Is it like perl? Support every possible way to do something if it
remotely makes sense to do it, no matter how bizarre the syntax?
Is it like python? Pick ONE way to do it and stick with it dammit!
Is it like php? Do whatever you feel like?
Is it like command line text processing tools that only do one narrow
thing well? [1]
Is it like bash? I can't find a decent description of how bash came to
be except it's like Vogons - wasn't designed and didn't evolve, it just
sort of ... congealed

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but there's a prize of 40 internets up
for the first person who can clearly and unambiguously define "Unix
design principles" with specificity so that it is globally applicable.

Best I can come up with is "Use common sense and build stuff that can be
used and maintained" which is wonderfully descriptive but really sucks
as a definition.



[1] For lack of a better term, let's just call systemd here a "system
controller". What is this ONE thing a system controller should do and do
it well?

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com