Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)

[anothy@cosym.net]

// * rio windows are not searchable...

rio windows are searchable, there's just not convienent pre-packaged ways
to do it. try `sed 10q /dev/text' from a rio window. "Look" in rio would be
very nice; having /dev/text would be, as well.

// ...acme "win" windows won't let you run graphics programs.

there was work on correcting this, no? i seem to remember rob having a
version of acme that would at least allow one to display static images
within acme. did this ever get any further?

// * Lack of find and xargs.

i've missed find several times. xargs always struck me as compensating for
poor shell design. i still think find would be useful, although a massivly
stripped-down version from what's in most unixes would be more than
enough. about 90% of my find usage has been replaced with the fragment
`{du -a . | awk '{print $2}'} and i think a shell script built around that, ls -l,
and grep could be all the find i ever need.

// * Anemic functionality in diff, and lack of patch.  For example, GNU diff
//  will at least tell you whether binary files differ; Plan 9 diff just gives up.

cmp(1) works fine on binary files. what else are you looking for in diff? i
bind adiff into my /bin even when not in acme, to plumb from anywhere.

// * Poor memory management.  On my 1GB desktop system, a ridiculous
// amount of kernel memory gets allocated to pixmaps...

kernel memory is a tunable parameter in plan9.ini(8); see *kernelpercent.
i'm not sure that's what you're talking about, though. are you looking to
adjust individual pools (image, heap main), like you can in Inferno?

// * Lack of a web browser.

in Inferno, see charon(1). i use it for about 90-95% of my web use. of the
sites it has problem on, the majority (in my experience) are stupid sites
doing bogus checks to make sure i've got appropriate capabilities (most
comonly 128-bit SSL) by checking my browser version, and complaining
if it's not certain version of IE or Netscape. Charon lets you set the agent
string, but that leads to other problems. i've sometimes missed better
JavaScript support, but never Java support.

i use VNC to a remote Solaris box with Netscape installed in the 5-10%
where Charon won't cut it.

// * /lib vs. /sys/lib

i maintain that this is a good distinction that just hasn't been followed.
maybe the names could have been chosen better, but i think there's
good reason to seperate a repository of information (/lib) from system
configuration info (/sys/lib). i don't, for example, want the kana tables
or constitution in the same place as system-wide ssh or plumbing
configuration info. of course, Plan 9's already broke this (several things
in /lib, like /lib/namespace, seem like they belong in /sys/lib), but
that doesn't indicate the idea's flawed.
-α.