From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B9397138E66 for ; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 07:11:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 71288E0B95; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 07:11:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: from forward3l.mail.yandex.net (forward3l.mail.yandex.net [84.201.143.136]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 390AFE0B14 for ; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 07:11:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp14.mail.yandex.net (smtp14.mail.yandex.net [95.108.131.192]) by forward3l.mail.yandex.net (Yandex) with ESMTP id CB59A1500D76 for ; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:11:06 +0400 (MSK) Received: from smtp14.mail.yandex.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp14.mail.yandex.net (Yandex) with ESMTP id 88EC31B60099 for ; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:11:06 +0400 (MSK) Received: from unknown (unknown [91.233.55.8]) by smtp14.mail.yandex.net (nwsmtp/Yandex) with ESMTPSA id 6lb9Ae6yKs-B63Kepsx; Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:11:06 +0400 (using TLSv1 with cipher AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client certificate not present) X-Yandex-Uniq: a785d8e1-2c28-44c1-80a1-b5e804c44a77 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yandex.ru; s=mail; t=1393225866; bh=SeqnrNOV7kAy+/cVnG21y8PZumyRMKZK0bFMcxuloH0=; h=Message-ID:Date:From:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:Subject: References:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=Jj8OOpiPU46UWHt00vJ+LEgfhjibHWkosR1gT365h7xlkdWVNOMTwSPEGd5VxkI8I Hjz7lMCHNMJfM8vy2aNK1e3BA4WmneQP4p/beBwfSKILMlqBw0m6QAiSjV1Y2StZMx LgTthBghaSMmY3WmDjwfwJBHKoqTTFvNV1YANLpA= Authentication-Results: smtp14.mail.yandex.net; dkim=pass header.i=@yandex.ru Message-ID: <530AF085.1000206@yandex.ru> Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:11:01 +0400 From: "Yuri K. Shatroff" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.3.0 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Debian just voted in systemd for default init system in jessie References: <52FF84CE.2050301@libertytrek.org> <5301B3E1.3000007@yandex.ru> <201402231335.31992.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> <530A7700.4030809@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <530A7700.4030809@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Archives-Salt: 9b55adcb-553c-4a73-85e9-4062264dce7a X-Archives-Hash: 6b478fb8b57820d5face68d20b63747e 24.02.2014 02:32, Alan McKinnon wrote: > 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. I may not be an authority, too. But please allow me to refute your arguments. > Is it like the kernel? A huge monolithic chunk of code with support for > modules? It ain't. No monolithic chunk of code, it's configurable. > 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? It's grown to that, but in the beginning it was (striving to be) a clean system doing generally one thing (graphical client/server) and doing it well. [1] It's not X11 devs' fault that GPUs and all that multidisplay/ multimedia stuff don't work well with client/server arch because they were designed for some other, you know which, OS. I assume if the GPU vendors had their specs opened "20 years" ago, some wayland-like stuff would have been ready near that time. > 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? Perl (I suppose you know what it stands for) is great (probably the greatest) for what it was invented for: text manipulation/analysis. It could have been a good replacement for many things like awk, sed, tr etc. if the author were less ambitious to conquer the world with Perl. > Is it like python? Pick ONE way to do it and stick with it dammit! You misquoted. The phrase is: "there should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it", *one* meaning 'at least one', complemented with *should be* and *obvious*. > Is it like php? Do whatever you feel like? Php was a Unix design? LOL. Php wasn't a design at all. It was just another personal home pages perl script. > Is it like command line text processing tools that only do one narrow > thing well? [1] Perfectly well. > 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 Bash or sh? What about ksh, csh, zsh etc? Well, a shell actually does two things: interactive shell and scripting. Let's ponder on how they can be separated? > 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. A truism: There's nothing 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. Something like this, but neither is it globally applicable. > > > [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? An init daemon generally does one thing well. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11#Principles -- Regards, Yuri K. Shatroff