Re: [9fans] How can I shift a variable other than ?

["Dan Cross" <crossd@gmail.com>]

On 3/10/07, Kris Maglione <bsdaemon@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 04:20:22PM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
> >Nonsense.  You think rc has never changed before?  There have been
> >plenty of non-backwards compatible changes in Plan 9.
>
> You miss the point entirely. I agree that things shouldn't stay the same
> simply for the sake of compatibility. Plan 9 threw away a bunch of UNIX
> crud in the begining, and was not set in stone from the begining. I have
> no desire to add teletypes and ioctls to be compatible with UNIX.
>
> The point is that rc(1) has been rc since the begining. It's rc
> everywhere. If you write an rc script, you can expect it work wherever
> you send it. The one infuriating exception which I've run across is the
> UNIX port, which I have to worry about being in peoples' PATHs on UNIX,
> rather than the Plan 9 version.
>
> If there are to be changes, there's no reason to make those
> changes to rc. It would be best to create a new shell that deals with
> the shortcomings of rc, rather than adding features and cruft. That is
> how UNIX got to be so cruddy to begin with. The reason that sh(1) and
> Plan 9 are so nice is because they reevaluated and threw away most of
> what came before them.

No, I didn't miss the point, which, if carried to its logical
conclusion would imply that we should just write a new operating
system whenever we want to add something new.  There's nothing set in
stone about any system; the problems you describe come when people
start believing that there is.  The proliferation of shells under Unix
could have been avoided by carefully re-evaluating the existing offers
and making appropriate changes.  Instead, we ended up with Shell Soup.

Rc is just a program; yes, a pretty good one, but it is not a
religious document: it is open to interpretation, re-evaluation and
change.

Put another way, one of the reasons Plan 9 has remained so nice over
the years is because the folks primary responsible for it have been
open to making reasonable changes where appropriate.

> >>It runs on Inferno, which runs on Plan 9. You can script for Plan 9 in
> >>Inferno's sh. You can even script for UNIX in it. I've done both. It
> >>works. It's not even ugly.
>
> Then perhaps, as has been said for ages, it is best to make the
> integration between Inferno and Plan 9 more seemless, and the
> installation easier. It would, indeed, be nice to include Inferno in
> Plan 9 by default.

You're replying to yourself there.

        - Dan C.