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

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

[forsyth]

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even on plan 9,
mk clean clears out the object files that are now installed in the libraries,
but leaves the libraries.  (some other targets are sometimes left behind, not just libraries.)
mk nuke removes the target libraries (and sometimes other targets) as well.
the distinction is helpful when working with the compilers, and perhaps upas.
mk pristine might be a better name, since nukes leave quite a mess, but
it's harder to type.


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From: David Gordon Hogan <dhog@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 14:36:55 -0400
Message-ID: <20011015183659.58FA419A3C@mail.cse.psu.edu>

> So, please explain "different purposes" served by "mk clean" and "mk nuke".

It is perhaps worth noting that under Inferno, "mk nuke" is much more
aggressive, actually removing installed libraries and dis files.

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

[David Gordon Hogan]

> So, please explain "different purposes" served by "mk clean" and "mk nuke".

It is perhaps worth noting that under Inferno, "mk nuke" is much more
aggressive, actually removing installed libraries and dis files.

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

[presotto]

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I agree that the distinction is hardly worth the effort.

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From: Mike Haertel <mike@ducky.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 01:30:19 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200110150830.f9F8UJa82006@ducky.net>

>Mike Haertel wrote:
>> i see no real reason for "mk nuke" to exist.  "mk clean" *almost* removes
>> every intermediate file; why not just fix it to get them all, and then
>> get rid of "mk nuke" entirely?
>
>No, 'nuke' and 'clean' serve two different purposes.  Both are aptly named.

Ok, here's an exercise for the reader...

After a full build of libraries and commands for the 386 target,
of all the thousands of files generated during the build, only
the following 17 files are *not* removed by "mk clean":

	/sys/src/ape/cmd/make/gram.c
	/sys/src/cmd/cc/cc.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/eqn/eqn.c
	/sys/src/cmd/9nfs/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/map/libmap/libmap.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/postscript/common/com.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/spell/amspell
	/sys/src/cmd/spell/brspell
	/sys/src/cmd/plot/libplot.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/lib/libcvs.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/zlib/libzlib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/diff/libdiff.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/tpic/picy.c
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/kpathsea/libkpathsea.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/web2c/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/libthread/syms.386
	/sys/src/libscribble/syms

And here is the list of files left after a further "mk nuke":

	/sys/src/cmd/eqn/eqn.c
	/sys/src/cmd/map/libmap/libmap.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/lib/libcvs.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/zlib/libzlib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/diff/libdiff.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/tpic/picy.c
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/kpathsea/libkpathsea.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/web2c/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/libthread/syms.386
	/sys/src/libscribble/syms

In other words, the difference between "mk clean" and "mk nuke" is
just 7 files in all of /sys/src.  (In addition, "mk nuke" does some
collateral damage outside /sys/src.)

So, please explain "different purposes" served by "mk clean" and "mk nuke".

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

[Mike Haertel]

>Mike Haertel wrote:
>> i see no real reason for "mk nuke" to exist.  "mk clean" *almost* removes
>> every intermediate file; why not just fix it to get them all, and then
>> get rid of "mk nuke" entirely?
>
>No, 'nuke' and 'clean' serve two different purposes.  Both are aptly named.

Ok, here's an exercise for the reader...

After a full build of libraries and commands for the 386 target,
of all the thousands of files generated during the build, only
the following 17 files are *not* removed by "mk clean":

	/sys/src/ape/cmd/make/gram.c
	/sys/src/cmd/cc/cc.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/eqn/eqn.c
	/sys/src/cmd/9nfs/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/map/libmap/libmap.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/postscript/common/com.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/spell/amspell
	/sys/src/cmd/spell/brspell
	/sys/src/cmd/plot/libplot.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/lib/libcvs.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/zlib/libzlib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/diff/libdiff.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/tpic/picy.c
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/kpathsea/libkpathsea.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/web2c/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/libthread/syms.386
	/sys/src/libscribble/syms

And here is the list of files left after a further "mk nuke":

	/sys/src/cmd/eqn/eqn.c
	/sys/src/cmd/map/libmap/libmap.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/lib/libcvs.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/zlib/libzlib.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/cvs/diff/libdiff.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/tpic/picy.c
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/kpathsea/libkpathsea.a8
	/sys/src/cmd/tex/web2c/lib/lib.a8
	/sys/src/libthread/syms.386
	/sys/src/libscribble/syms

In other words, the difference between "mk clean" and "mk nuke" is
just 7 files in all of /sys/src.  (In addition, "mk nuke" does some
collateral damage outside /sys/src.)

So, please explain "different purposes" served by "mk clean" and "mk nuke".

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

[Boyd Roberts]

Mike Haertel wrote:
> i see no real reason for "mk nuke" to exist.  "mk clean" *almost* removes
> every intermediate file; why not just fix it to get them all, and then
> get rid of "mk nuke" entirely?

No, 'nuke' and 'clean' serve two different purposes.  Both are aptly named.

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

[Mike Haertel]

>>	"mk clean" doesn't remove every generated file.  try (say)
>>	"find . -mtime -1 -type f -print" after rebuilding the world.
>>	(oops, forgot--Plan 9 doesn't have "find".)
>
>"mk nuke" does, no?

oh, i forgot to mention that.  "mk nuke" blows away /386/lib/ape/libap.a.
it may remove other installed files as well, but that's the only one
i've noticed so far.

i see no real reason for "mk nuke" to exist.  "mk clean" *almost* removes
every intermediate file; why not just fix it to get them all, and then
get rid of "mk nuke" entirely?

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

[pac]

... forsyth most probably meant 
http://cgi.www.vitanuova.com/cgi-bin/www.vitanuova.com/idown.pl
--
Peter A Cejchan
biologist
Acad. Sci., Prague, CZ
<cej at cejchan dot gli dot cas dot cz>

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

[Micah Stetson]

> Internet Explorer or Netscape.  indeed, i'd be surprised if there were
> not some sites that couldn't be viewed with Netscape.  come to think

Most definitely.  My mom works at a library where they've just
gotten an upgrade to their media (i.e. non-book) cataloging
software.  The stuff provides an integrated online catalog
and reservation system which, unless I'm misinformed,
crashes any version of Netscape and just won't work with any
other browser except IE >= 5.

Micah

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

[forsyth]

>>BTW, I use charon alot as well.

it's certainly our aim (and it's a company aim) to improve charon to
keep up with changes as best we can, but inevitably there will be some
things even so that cannot be done without the right binary plugin for
Internet Explorer or Netscape.  indeed, i'd be surprised if there were
not some sites that couldn't be viewed with Netscape.  come to think
of it, IE6 can't view some sites that IE5 could handle without
complaint because it seems to be more strict than IE5 or interprets
things differently.

i was hoping W3C & XML might be hit or at least slowed by the fall-out from .com collapse,
since much of the sillier XML ideas were driven by startups, but no such luck.
i find it more frightening for the science/art than SVGA.

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

[bwc]

DAGwyn@null.net wrote:
> bwc@borf.com wrote:
> > >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.
> > I have an iMAC for that.  One OS doesn't have to do everything.

> But Plan 9 has been advertised as a superior alternative to the
> usual developer's interactive computing environment.  A good Web
> browser is another essential tool, these days.  Why should one
> be forced to buy a second computer to do something that ought to
> be right up the alley of the first one?

It took me some time to realize having more than one computer is not
a bad thing.  The imac cost me less than the Hazeltine 1500 I bought
almost 20 years ago.  Surely the right tool for the job that is
the backbone of the Unix philosophy leads to the right system
for the job.

BTW, I use charon alot as well.

  Brantley Coile

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

[forsyth]

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sorry, it wasn't clear, and is actually surprisingly hard to find.
Charon is just one of the things included as part of the free Inferno download.
the link for apparently web designer reasons is in teeny tiny print at the bottom left hand side of
http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/index.html with a little logo above it.


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From: "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 09:10:35 GMT
Message-ID: <87y9mj7yep.fsf@becket.becket.net>

"Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net> writes:

> forsyth@vitanuova.com writes:
> 
> > you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
> > free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
> > one.
> 
> Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding!  Where do I find the
> download?  A web search was pretty unsuccessful, and poking around the
> vita nuova site I also failed to find it.
> 
> [Moderator's Note: try http://www.vitanuova.com]

As should be perfectly obvious from my message, I could not see where
on that page to download Charon.  Perhaps the underlying url might be
provided?  That is what I was asking for...

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

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

"Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net> writes:

> forsyth@vitanuova.com writes:
> 
> > you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
> > free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
> > one.
> 
> Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding!  Where do I find the
> download?  A web search was pretty unsuccessful, and poking around the
> vita nuova site I also failed to find it.
> 
> [Moderator's Note: try http://www.vitanuova.com]

As should be perfectly obvious from my message, I could not see where
on that page to download Charon.  Perhaps the underlying url might be
provided?  That is what I was asking for...

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

[Sam Hopkins]

I work at two different locations.  One requires I use linux,
the other permits me to use Plan9.  More work gets 
accomplished with the lack of unproductivity software 
(IM chat clients, fancy web browsers, etc).

When I'm developing under Plan9, Charon usually satisfies
any cravings I have for web information.  It bails on several
things, most irritatingly javascript, but otherwise is effective.

Sam

On Wednesday 10 October 2001 06:50, you wrote:
> it's actually a feature in practice!  by not providing a web browser, plan
> 9 tried to ensure that developers, rather than surfing the web, have plenty
> of free time left to implement something new, or complain about web
> browsers.

> Received: from finch-punt-12.mail.demon.net ([194.217.242.36]) by lavoro; 
Wed Oct 10 12:07:46 BST 2001
> Received: from punt-1.mail.demon.net by mailstore for 
forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk
>           id 1002705776:10:02460:39; Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:22:56 GMT
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>            id aa1002111; 10 Oct 2001 9:22 GMT
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> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
> From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
> Message-ID: <3BC3CDC9.E70140C8@null.net>
> Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster
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> References: <20011009131718.C5B2319A2D@mail.cse.psu.edu>
> Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
> Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu
> Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu
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> List-Id: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu>
> List-Archive: <http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/>
> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 08:57:21 GMT
> 
> bwc@borf.com wrote:
> > >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big
> > >> obstacle.
> >
> > I have an iMAC for that.  One OS doesn't have to do everything.
>
> But Plan 9 has been advertised as a superior alternative to the
> usual developer's interactive computing environment.  A good Web
> browser is another essential tool, these days.  Why should one
> be forced to buy a second computer to do something that ought to
> be right up the alley of the first one?

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

[forsyth]

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it's actually a feature in practice!  by not providing a web browser, plan 9 tried
to ensure that developers, rather than surfing the web, have plenty of
free time left to implement something new, or complain about web browsers.


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From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 08:57:21 GMT
Message-ID: <3BC3CDC9.E70140C8@null.net>

bwc@borf.com wrote:
> >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.
> I have an iMAC for that.  One OS doesn't have to do everything.

But Plan 9 has been advertised as a superior alternative to the
usual developer's interactive computing environment.  A good Web
browser is another essential tool, these days.  Why should one
be forced to buy a second computer to do something that ought to
be right up the alley of the first one?

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

[forsyth]

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i was referring specifically to plan 9, not arbitrary platforms.


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From: Mike Haertel <mike@ducky.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 02:55:26 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200110100955.f9A9tQJ00125@ducky.net>

>> you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
>> free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
>> one.
>
>Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding!  Where do I find the
>download?  A web search was pretty unsuccessful, and poking around the
>vita nuova site I also failed to find it.

What Forsyth failed to point out, somewhat ingenuously I think,
is that the free download doesn't *really* give you all you need
to run Charon in an arbitrary environment; you're restricted to
Plan 9 (i386), FreeBSD (i386), NT (i386), (pre-2.4) Linux (i386),
Solaris (sparc), Hp-ux, or Irix.

It does include the source code for Charon, but not the source code
for the virtual machine under which Charon runs.  There, you're out
of luck if your platform is not binary-compatible with one of the
provided binaries.

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

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 02:55:26AM -0700, Mike Haertel wrote:
> 
> It does include the source code for Charon, but not the source code
> for the virtual machine under which Charon runs.  There, you're out
> of luck if your platform is not binary-compatible with one of the
> provided binaries.

That's petty.  You're out of luck playing "Tubular Bells" on "an
old tin can, no matter what it's fitted with" (off the original
album cover).  Are you going to complain about that too?

There are innumerable things you can't do with free or paid for
resources, why single out Inferno?  Because Vita Nuova are trying
to make a buck out of something Lucent couldn't sell?  They're
working hard at it (I believe) and deserve some reward.  They also
need to make a living, and this is how they chose to do it.

Really, the missing bit behind the Open Source philosophy is an
understanding that not everyone has to buy it.  Or buy it all the
time, tyranny lurks there.

++L

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

[Mike Haertel]

>> you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
>> free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
>> one.
>
>Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding!  Where do I find the
>download?  A web search was pretty unsuccessful, and poking around the
>vita nuova site I also failed to find it.

What Forsyth failed to point out, somewhat ingenuously I think,
is that the free download doesn't *really* give you all you need
to run Charon in an arbitrary environment; you're restricted to
Plan 9 (i386), FreeBSD (i386), NT (i386), (pre-2.4) Linux (i386),
Solaris (sparc), Hp-ux, or Irix.

It does include the source code for Charon, but not the source code
for the virtual machine under which Charon runs.  There, you're out
of luck if your platform is not binary-compatible with one of the
provided binaries.

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

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

bwc@borf.com wrote:
> >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.
> I have an iMAC for that.  One OS doesn't have to do everything.

But Plan 9 has been advertised as a superior alternative to the
usual developer's interactive computing environment.  A good Web
browser is another essential tool, these days.  Why should one
be forced to buy a second computer to do something that ought to
be right up the alley of the first one?

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

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Isn't the problem the argv limits of number of characters and number of
> words?

There are several problems with traditional xargs.
The main one is that it doesn't properly quote the arguments,
so if there are embedded special characters the invoked
command gets bogus arguments.  (I usually encounter this in
one of the font directories where files are named after the
characters.)

8th Edition UNIX had an "apply" utility that was pretty
much the same thing.  Something of the sort is an important
tool to have in the utility toolkit.

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

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

forsyth@vitanuova.com writes:

> you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
> free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
> one.

Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding!  Where do I find the
download?  A web search was pretty unsuccessful, and poking around the
vita nuova site I also failed to find it.

[Moderator's Note: try http://www.vitanuova.com]

Thomas

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

[forsyth]

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you can download all you need of Inferno, including the source for Charon,
free of charge and with a licence that's at least as liberal as the Plan 9
one.

>> From this it sounds rather as if splufty new applications for Plan 9
>>are not going to happen, and that new work is all happening over in
>>Inferno land.  Is that accurate?

not at all, it's just that in this particular case, an HTML 3.x browser (with common 3.x extensions)
and Ecmascript exists, with reasonably small source (and it is being extended to 4.x etc).
it's hard work to start one of those from scratch, and if porting one of the existing ones,
good luck.


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To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Plan 9 annoyances (was: Re: [9fans] mv vs cp)
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 16:18:27 GMT
Message-ID: <87vghog663.fsf@becket.becket.net>

forsyth@vitanuova.com writes:

> >>Inferno != Plan 9.
> >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.
> 
> Inferno runs hosted under Plan 9 and Charon runs in that environment.
> we'll be blurring the boundaries further as well, at least for Plan 9.

Yeah, but Plan 9 is "free", at least in scare quotes, and AFAICT
Inferno is not.  "It runs under Inferno" is therefore considerably
materially different than Plan 9.

 From this it sounds rather as if splufty new applications for Plan 9
are not going to happen, and that new work is all happening over in
Inferno land.  Is that accurate?

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

[anothy]

// Yeah, but Plan 9 is "free", at least in scare quotes, and AFAICT
// Inferno is not.  "It runs under Inferno" is therefore considerably
// materially different than Plan 9.

most of Inferno is as "free" (using the same or lighter quotes as in
Plan 9 being "free"); some is not. the free parts, which include
Charon, can be downloaded from Vita Nuova's site.

// From this it sounds rather as if splufty new applications for Plan 9
// are not going to happen, and that new work is all happening over
// in Inferno land.  Is that accurate?

i doubt it. there's lots of inteligent C programmers running around
on this list alone. for various reasons, interesting things continue to
happen in Plan 9. but if something can more easially, simply,
quickly, and correctly (!) be done in Inferno than "native" Plan 9,
and can thus run on Plan 9 and bunches of other OSs, as is the case
with Charon, why duplicate the effort in Plan 9? i'd certainly rather
people interested in working on Plan 9 work towards making the
_other_ interesting things happen, like 9P2000, IPv6, USB support,
better driver support, etc. there's lots of room for interesting work
in both Plan 9 and Inferno.
-α.

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

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

forsyth@vitanuova.com writes:

> >>Inferno != Plan 9.
> >>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.
> 
> Inferno runs hosted under Plan 9 and Charon runs in that environment.
> we'll be blurring the boundaries further as well, at least for Plan 9.

Yeah, but Plan 9 is "free", at least in scare quotes, and AFAICT
Inferno is not.  "It runs under Inferno" is therefore considerably
materially different than Plan 9.

 From this it sounds rather as if splufty new applications for Plan 9
are not going to happen, and that new work is all happening over in
Inferno land.  Is that accurate?

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

[anothy]

// ...I suspect I prefer the xargs one because my frontal lobes are wired for linear
// tape-processing methods, and the second one requires understanding function
// theory and/or two passes to parse the nested clause.

funny, and i always considered xargs confusing to the way my brain understood
shell stuff: "uh, where's grep's other argument?" i found this especially true in rc,
where the nice {} and clean quoting rules make the "nested" version much easier
to read and understand than in many other shells. xargs seems to invert the flow
of the pipe, reminding me more of the "infix" notation originally proposed for
pipes (see http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html#pipes) than the
current structure.

rog's point about the buffering of input is a good one, and maybe xargs is just
better there, but it's just never been an issue for me, even before i found Plan 9
and worked exclusivly on Unix machines (and thus had xargs as an option).
-α.

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

[anothy]

// Inferno != Plan 9.

// There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.

given the presence of Charon for Inferno, i doubt it, actually. the point is to
provide a web browser usable withing Plan 9, and Charon fills that need
nicely (not totally, but nicely). do you really care that it's a dis program, or
that it's running within a virtual machine? do you think the Mac OS X users
are bothered by the fact that many of their apps run in Classic (OS X's
emulation of OS 9, for the unaware)?

i have a "charon" rc script in Plan 9 that starts up a seperate emu window
of reasonable size and starts charon running in it. the differences between
that and were Charon running "native" in Plan 9 are minimal, to me as a
user. and, more to the point, given the presence of a web browser usable
directly from within Plan 9, as Charon is, i definatly don't think i'd advocate
anyone spending time on that, while there's still plenty about Plan 9 that
i'd like to see fixed that Inferno _doesn't_ solve (yet?).

and yes, one OS doesn't have to do everything, but it is worth looking at
how much we can make it do (without breaking what's right about it).
-α.

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

[bwc]

>>Inferno != Plan 9.
>>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.

I have an iMAC for that.  One OS doesn't have to do everything.

Brantley Coile

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

[George Michaelson]

> > > i've missed find several times. xargs always struck me as
> > > compensating for poor shell design.
> >
> > Isn't the problem the argv limits of number of characters and number of
> > words?
> 
> i don't think so entirely...
> 
> for instance if i want to grep through an entire source tree,
> i don't want to wait until the tree has been traversed completely
> before the text searching begins. using
> 
> 	du -a . | awk '{print $2}' | xargs grep pattern
> 
> often gives me results much faster than
> 
> 	grep pattern `{du -a . | awk '{print $2}'}
> 

if you had a way to unblock/buffer the pipe, would the diffence be that
great?

That aside, I suspect I prefer the xargs one because my frontal lobes
are wired for linear tape-processing methods, and the second one requires
understanding function theory and/or two passes to parse the nested clause.

> the latter usually works. i don't know what the kernel
> limit is on command-line arguments, but it's more than sufficient
> to pass all the source files in /sys/src (6764 files, ~160K).
> 
>   rog.

Ie if you deliberately avoid the glob expansion problems which bedevill
ls * | do a bunch of stuff you don't need find in flat spaces.

xargs is cheap to implement in a shellscript and I have done that too,
because I didn't know  xargs existed for a long time. Likewise I use awk
'{print $fieldnum}' because I didn't know cut existed, and my erstwhile
younger and wiser heads find me laughably inept at shell these days.

So is this yet another iteration of 'why write a command when you can write
a script' ?

-George

PS amusingly enough, the same year I was learning about v7 on a pdp11
in Leeds, I had an Armenian guy try and convince me PICK was the way of
the future, and that all coming filesystems would be database abstraction.

I suppose if I'd been malleable enough I'd have bought that too. Still,
we all laughed at the head of department for being a laser physicist. "What
could *he* know about computing?" we said. And more fool us...


--
George Michaelson       |  APNIC
Email: ggm@apnic.net    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064
Phone: +61 7 3367 0490  |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3367 0482  |  http://www.apnic.net

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

[rog]

> > i've missed find several times. xargs always struck me as
> > compensating for poor shell design.
>
> Isn't the problem the argv limits of number of characters and number of
> words?

i don't think so entirely...

for instance if i want to grep through an entire source tree,
i don't want to wait until the tree has been traversed completely
before the text searching begins. using

	du -a . | awk '{print $2}' | xargs grep pattern

often gives me results much faster than

	grep pattern `{du -a . | awk '{print $2}'}

the latter usually works. i don't know what the kernel
limit is on command-line arguments, but it's more than sufficient
to pass all the source files in /sys/src (6764 files, ~160K).

  rog.

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

[forsyth]

>>Inferno != Plan 9.
>>There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big obstacle.

Inferno runs hosted under Plan 9 and Charon runs in that environment.
we'll be blurring the boundaries further as well, at least for Plan 9.

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

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

> i've missed find several times. xargs always struck me as
> compensating for poor shell design.

Isn't the problem the argv limits of number of characters and number of
words?

> 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.

Didn't Bell Labs have a stat(1) program on Unix which used to print the
return from stat(2) which could then be used to choose the files using
awk, etc.  This was an improvement on find(1) because you had more
flexibility instead of find's built-in language.


Ralph.

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

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

anothy@cosym.net writes:

> 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.

I want diff to DTRT for whatever kind of file it is.  

Indeed, line-by-line diff can even work for binary files!  You have to
make sure you escape things appropriately so that patch (or ed, or
whatever) can deal, but the case is not somehow inconceivable.  (Of
course, for binary files a diff will often typically be as large as
the original: and I don't so much mind just falling back to cmp.)

> // * Lack of a web browser.
> 
> in Inferno, see charon(1). 

Inferno != Plan 9.

There is no web browser in Plan 9---and that's got to be a big
obstacle.

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

[Russ Cox]

> i thought overlayfs was supposed to do something like this?
> maybe it never worked...

geoff got stitch mostly working before he
left, but i haven't gone back to it. 
stitch is rather heavy weight for something
that you probably want in every person's
namespace.  (for instance, you probably want
	stitch -a /rc/bin /bin
	stitch -a /$objtype/bin /bin
so that you can do away with /$objtype/bin/ape/psh).

i'm convinced the kernel should do it,
but the implementation is hard.  however, once 
you have it working, you could write an nfafs
to replace libregexp: just mount the regexp and
then try to open /mnt/regexp/t/e/x/t/t/o/s/e/a/r/c/h.

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

[rog]

> Somebody please fix this.  All you need
> to do is implement a recursive union mount.
> We will all be grateful.

i thought overlayfs was supposed to do something like this?
maybe it never worked...

> "mk nuke" does, no?

while we're on the subject of removing intermediate files and
criticisms, one of my pet peeves is that object files have a
single-letter extension, thus at a stroke removing many potentially
useful filename extensions and making the choice of a new $O fraught
with danger...

there's no easy way of removing all object files from a directory
without enumerating all the possible (and changing) set of objtype
extensions.

would it be an enormous hardship to change from
	file.$O
to
	file.o$O
?

and then at least i can remove all object files in reasonable
comfort and safety with "rm *.o?"...

  rog.

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

[Russ Cox]

> * The need for /$objtype/bin/ape/psh, which is a #!/bin/rc script.

Somebody please fix this.  All you need
to do is implement a recursive union mount.
We will all be grateful.

> * Lack of long file names.  (Someday to be fixed in 9P2000.)

9P2000 doesn't allow long file names.  You can't have names bigger
than 65536 bytes.

>	"mk clean" doesn't remove every generated file.  try (say)
>	"find . -mtime -1 -type f -print" after rebuilding the world.
>	(oops, forgot--Plan 9 doesn't have "find".)

"mk nuke" does, no?

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

[anothy]

// * 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.

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

[Lucio De Re]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 01:38:00AM -0700, Mike Haertel wrote:
> 
> >> Often.  This is one of the things that most irritates me about Plan 9.
> >
> >Talk about extreme responses :-)
> 
> What's this, can't the Plan 9 Thought Police take a little criticism? :-)
> 
Well, here I'm saying I never cause file contents to be moved around,
and on the other hand there's a response that says "often".  Those are
the extremes.  Sorry I wasn't more explicit :-)

> More seriously, an extreme response would be something like giving
> up Plan 9.  If anything, I am using it more often these days.
> 
You're right, of course.  And it's good that Bell Labs released Plan 9
to a more critical audience, even though we do occasionally get their
goat with our requests.

In your list, a few issues would be very easy to correct, and I'm sure
the right amount of fedback (call it code, if that's what it takes)
will be accepted.  So, probably, would be an attempt to provide a
semi-sane "rename" capability.

Looking at Russ making progress on so many fronts, I would say we can
all vote with our code.  Even to the extreme of re-introducing ALEF,
if I was willing to complete the port to 3ed.

++L

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

[Mike Haertel]

>> Often.  This is one of the things that most irritates me about Plan 9.
>
>Talk about extreme responses :-)

What's this, can't the Plan 9 Thought Police take a little criticism? :-)

More seriously, an extreme response would be something like giving
up Plan 9.  If anything, I am using it more often these days.

That said, there are numerous irritations.  Some are architectural
and unlikely to be fixed, others are easy to fix.  Here's a sample:

* The existence of non-network-transparent kernel devices like /srv
  which don't work when accessed by exportfs on behalf of a remote machine.

* The need for /$objtype/bin/ape/psh, which is a #!/bin/rc script.
  (Exercise for the reader: explain why this exists even though the
  same script can also be found in /rc/bin/ape/psh.)

* Lack of long file names.  (Someday to be fixed in 9P2000.)

* Other arbitrary limits in programs.  Everyone is familiar with line
  length limits in various utilities.  Lots more obscure ones, like
  max 512 files in ramfs.  Avoiding arbitrary limits is something the
  GNU folk got really right, because one person's "this is a reasonable limit"
  is another's "how could those morons set such a low limit?"  It's easy
  to get right and you should Just Do It.

* rio windows are not searchable, but on the other hand acme "win" windows
  won't let you run graphics programs.

* Lack of find and xargs.  I don't need creeping featurism like "chmod -R",
  but there should be *some* mechanism for mapping commands over the
  file hierarchy.

* 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.

* Bad release engineering.  For example, in /sys/src:

	"mk all" builds the commands in /sys/src/cmd, but doesn't
	build the commands in subdirectories of /sys/src/cmd.
	(you need to also go to /sys/src/cmd and do "mk all.directories")
	why?

	"mk clean" doesn't remove every generated file.  try (say)
	"find . -mtime -1 -type f -print" after rebuilding the world.
	(oops, forgot--Plan 9 doesn't have "find".)

	"mk all" installs some things even though there is a
	separate "mk install" target for installing.  the lib*
	makefiles are particularly annoying in this regard.

* Poor support for symbolic debugging.  This one has always baffled
  me because Bell Labs had an amazingly pleasant debugger called "pi"
  under v10.

* Poor memory management.  On my 1GB desktop system, a ridiculous amount
  of kernel memory gets allocated to pixmaps, but kfs still uses only 2mb
  for file buffers.  (Yes, I know I'm supposed to use the dedicated file
  server... someday soon.)

* Lack of a web browser.  Sigh, even those of us who should know better
  get caught.  ("Hey man, you've got to try this stuff... don't worry,
  you can't get addicted if you just try it once!")

* /lib vs. /sys/lib