Re: [9fans] a bit OT, programming style question

["J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Try env | wc -l in bash. Now tell me why that value is so big.
>
>> [root@host ~]# env | wc -l
>>        37
>> [root@host ~]#
>
> Is that very high? I don't even know if it is or how it would mean anything
> bad (or good for that matter) assuming it were high. Not to mention, it's a
> very bad metric. Because:
>
>> [root@host ~]# env | wc -c
>>        1404
>> [root@host ~]#
>
> Most of it in the 19 lines for one TERMCAP variable. Strictly a relic of the
> past kept with all good intentions: backward compatibility, and heeding the
> diversity of hardware and configuration that still exists out there. 5 of
> the other 18 lines are completely specific to my installation. That leaves
> us with 13 short lines.

Grumble... s/env/set

And then you see the guts of bash spill out.

>
> Quite a considerable portion of UNIX-like systems, FreeBSD in this case, is
> the way it is not because the developers are stupid, rather because they
> have a "constituency" to tend to. They aren't carefree researchers with high
> ambitions.

I leveled no claims against *BSD or Linux. I'm simply trying to point
out that bash is utter garbage, as its own man page indicates.

>
> --On Tuesday, April 07, 2009 11:04 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 9:48 PM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The man page *does* say it's too big and slow. So does the bash
>>>> manpage. And getting readline to do anything sane is about as fun as
>>>> screwing around with a terminfo file.
>>>
>>> A bad implementation is not a bad design. And, in fact, the badness of
>>> the implementation is even questionable in the light of bash's normal
>>> behavior or the working .inputrc files I've been using for some time.
>>
>> Behavior is not indicative of good design. It just means that the
>> bandaids heaped upon bash (and X11, and...) make it work acceptably.
>>
>> Try env | wc -l in bash. Now tell me why that value is so big.
>>
>>>
>>> Anyway, thanks for the info.
>>>
>>> --On Tuesday, April 07, 2009 3:57 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro"
>>> <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Eris Discordia
>>>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I see. But seriously, readline does handle bindings and line editing
>>>>> for bash. Except it's a function instead of a program and you think
>>>>> it's a bad idea.
>>>>
>>>> The man page *does* say it's too big and slow. So does the bash
>>>> manpage. And getting readline to do anything sane is about as fun as
>>>> screwing around with a terminfo file.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --On Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10:31 PM +0800 sqweek <sqweek@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 2009/4/7 Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Keyboard
>>>>>>>>> bindings for example; why couldn't they be handled by a program
>>>>>>>>> that just does keyboard bindings + line editing, and writes
>>>>>>>>> finalized lines to the shell.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Like... readline(3)?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  No.
>>>>>> -sqweek
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --On Tuesday, April 07, 2009 8:09 AM -0700 ron minnich
>>>>> <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Eris Discordia
>>>>>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Like... readline(3)?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> one hopes not.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ron
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>