Re: [9fans] x10

[Martin C.Atkins <martin@parvat.com>]

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 00:11:23 -0700 Geoff Collyer <geoff@collyer.net> wrote:
>...

Lots of stuff I agree with...

> Actually there's another reason to choose Linux last (other than
> Windows): the distributions I've seen are just a collection of ~1,000
> packages and, if they even come with sources, you hope you can compile
> them all, but they demand different prerequisite library versions
> (often for little or no reason), some of which are incompatible and
> can't co-exist, so it becomes a major pain to construct a consistent
> source tree, for which you have running binaries, and which you could
> recompile all (or part) of.  The BSDs at least are integrated systems,
> maintained as systems, not packages, so they come with self-consistent
> sources, and you can compile them.  For programs that aren't part of
> the core system (``ports''), they let `make' figure out the
> dependencies (novel!) and drag in the necessary prerequisites and they
> usually build (occasionally the gratuitous overspecificity of version
> numbers bites one in the ass; it's a real problem in the BSD/Linux
> world).

This is also mostly true, but having used Debian Linux for several
years now, I can claim with some non-trivial experience that Debian is the
counter example (that proves the rule? :-).
Debian linux, like the BSDs also tries to release a 'system', not
just a collection of packages. That is why the Debian release cycle
is so long, and why the 'latest and greatest' version is always
rather out of date!

I apt-get modules daily (or at least, weekly), and have never had
one program/library break another, or any of the usual library-version hell.

Of course, if you step outside the packages in the stable system, then
things can get a little more complicated, but that is your choice, and
usually the package system still sorts things out with very minimal
hassle.

>..
> If you're bored and have an afternoon, a fast machine, a broadband
> connection and ~10GBs of disk to kill, ask FreeBSD to build `gnucash':
> it drags in code and compiles and drags and compiles, but the best
>...

Just last week I apt-getted a reasonably recent version of gnucash,
and that was all there was to it. Nothing broke, all the dependencies
were automatically updated, etc. etc. No scheme-version hell, either.
(It's just a pity that the up-to-date manual hadn't also been packaged,
but that only took a few minutes to fix).

The number of times you see instructions for the installation of packages
on RPM-based systems include the direction to "turn off package version
compatibility checking" is truly scary! I'm not even sure if apt has
such an option!

> And of course there are the people who insist on programming in
> (shudder) Perl.  Lordy, lordy, lordy.  One is reminded of Phil Wadler
> on XML (see /sys/games/lib/fortunes): it's not a language (at least in
> the sense of having a finite or at least well-defined grammar, or at
> least a grammar!, and some attempt at having a minimal, non-redundant,
> orthogonal set of constructs that cover the application space of
> interest), it's not a sharp tool but rather a swiss-army
> gasoline-powered chainsaw, and it's not particularly good for doing
> anything.  Sorry; I'm allergic to Perl.

Agreed! Agreed!!!!

Martin
-- 
Martin C. Atkins			martin@parvat.com
Parvat Infotech Private Limited		http://www.parvat.com{/,/martin}