Re: [9front] [PATCH] programmable menus for rio

["Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)" <lyndon@orthanc.ca>]

ori@eigenstate.org writes:

> At the same time, I've got some hesitation because this
> is part of the rio interface -- and the more we add to
> the rio interface, the less it becomes a general interface
> it becomes.

I'm with Ori on this.

> In the past, there's been talk of a notebook style rio
> replacement, and every knob and feature we add to rio
> would become something that we'd need to fit into (or
> shoehorn into) this hypothetical rio alternative.

Given that rio has had a couple of decades to bake, the
world has changed around it, and thinking of new stuff
is always a good idea.  But diddling with rio just seems
a path to feechur bloat.  If you really want to try new
things, it's best to start from the ground up (IMO).
But the joy of rio is you can write and experiment with
your new stuff inside of rio, without breaking your
existing environment.

But what I *am* really reluctant to embrace is thowing
new files into /dev in a willy-nilly fashion.  The
current scheme for /dev files and how they get used has
some deep thought behind it, and I think anyone should
think long and hard about how new facilities can be
merged into the existing interfaces before throwing
new files at /dev (or anywhere else).  As always,
try to solve for the general case.

--lyndon