[9fans] Indoor and outdoor plumbing

[9fans] Indoor and outdoor plumbing

[Jeffrey Green]

Hello everyone,

I'm still fairly new to plan9 after only a little over a week of exposure and intense absorption
into that world. At this point, I'm coming up for air in order to see what the long time prospects
are. To be honest, I'm not sure, in particular with respect to its life outside a research 
environment. I do though very much want it to live beyond. In that spirit and the spirit that 
comes along as one reads  Rob Pike's paper on plumbing, I offer the below.

The man pages are an exotic tool for people unfamiliar with them. However, to those who are
familiar, they provide crucial and concise information for the subject on hand. The man 
pages within the plan9 system by and large follow the traditional format. There are a 
few differences in comparison to those in the unix or linux world, but really not that many.
What I want to suggest here is a section for plumbing, or rather PLUMBING as the man
pages might list it. I suggest this in the context of the subject line.

Indoor and outdoor plumbing; what is that about? The door as I am using it in the previous
terms refers to the "door" of ones home, or $home here. I think that most people do not
have a blueprint for the plumbing in their home, or if one exists then it possibly has been
misplaced. In particular, they often do not hand a plumber a blueprint if they call one to
come and fix their plumbing. However for plumbing for public spaces and environments 
that go beyond the context of serving one individual or one family, a blueprint or some
form of documentation is needed. At the least, it is very beneficial for anyone needing
to work with the plumbing.

Okay, so the analogous situation here is the plumbing in the plan9 system that is out (of)
doors, outside $home's door. It needs documentation for sensible use. That documentation
at the least provides a meeting point for conventions in the use of plumbing. However, it
also provides needed structure regarding connecting points and flow of information in the
form of messages. One difficulty is where to put that information in regards to the man pages,
i.e. which ones. Since the command is not necessarily the source of the plumbing rules 
that connect with the process associated with the command, it is difficult to require the
implementors of a command to be responsible for that section. Consequently, one problem
to be included in the proposal is what is the basis for including plumbing information. How 
does one decide to put a section in a man page that one did not originally author? It becomes 
a problem of how to deal with community living.

I assume that if the original designers of plan9 had included said section in the organization of 
the man page that they would have done an excellent job of defining the form of that section. 
However, it doesn't look as if that section was included. So if it is to be included, then it is up to the
present community to figure out what should be in it. Obviously some may think that section
is unnecessary. For some, possibly many, man pages that is probably true. However for
others I think differently. At this point, it can be treated as a bit of an exercise as to what the form
of that section should contain and how it should be presented. The spirit of the man pages seem 
to be (for me) that of mathematical common sense.

So there it is. Any thoughts?

-jeff