Re: GLOB_BRACE

[Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>]

On 09/23/2013 10:54:55 AM, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 10:18:12AM -0500, Rob Landley wrote:
> > On 09/23/2013 09:35:25 AM, Luca Barbato wrote:
> > >On 23/09/13 16:08, Rob Landley wrote:
> > >> systemd is the second coming of devfsd. A lot of us are waiting
> > >for it
> > >> to blow over.
> > >
> > >Given the economic and PR support it won't blow over easily if
> > >alternatives on par on the PR side won't appear.
> >
> > Exact same argument applied to Windows.
> 
> And Windows hasn't "blown over".

Sure. But it wasn't a reason to stop doing Linux either.

> It's become arguably irrelevant
> percentage-wise because the scope of the 'market' has vastly grown,
> but in terms of absolute numbers it's still there, and it's still
> critical to most of the content-production that takes place.
> 
> It's fine if you want to say you don't care about this now-niche
> market, but that doesn't solve the problem for people who are still
> dependent on it (which is still a fairly large portion of the
> computer-using population, even if only a small portion of the number
> of computers).

Server systems migrated from glibc to musl but with systemd seems like  
a fairly small niche, but if it interests you...

> > >Keep in mind that pigs can fly just nicely if propelled
> > >adequately. The
> > >landing could be problematic though.
> >
> > Mainframe -> minicomputer -> microcomputer -> smartphone. Arguing
> > about how Red Hat Enterprise does it today is like arguing over how
> > the VAX did it circa 1991.
> >
> > Linux on the desktop didn't happen. Past tense. There are a billion
> > android devices in use today. The new iPhone is explicitly a desktop
> > replacement with a 64 bit processor, support for bluetooth mice and
> > keyboards, and airplay to put the display on any HDTV:
> >
> >   http://www.cringely.com/2013/09/19/the-secret-of-ios-7/
> 
> The iPhone doesn't even have a model for storing data locally in a way
> that's sharable between applications. Yes, we're moving in the
> direction you describe, but it's going to (1) take a bit longer, and
> (2) be full of really bad solutions from all the major commercial
> players.

Agreed. Although the number of failed X11 thin clients in the 1990's  
was kind of hilarious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_terminal
http://news.cnet.com/Ellison-resurrects-network-computer/2100-1001_3-233137.html

People have been trying to get rid of local storage and have dumb  
terminals for something like 30 years. It's been 5 years away all that  
time.

*shrug* I often use my android phone for is as a convenient USB stick  
via the charger cable. How this is programmed is still up in the air,  
but the hardware's there.

> > Android's not far behind. All we have to do is prevent systemd from
> > being adopted by Android and Lennart's Hairball can get kicked up
> > into the server space with the previous generation of hardware like
> > Cobol before it, where we don't have to care unless we want to be
> > our generation's version of punched card job control wranglers for
> > the money.
> 
> The problem is that we do care about server space. The naive version
> of your analogy with "mainframe -> mini -> ..." breaks down in that
> this time, it's not really the old technology and problems being
> pushed up to the servespace. Instead, the serverspace is undergoing
> its own major change to something new; in buzzword-space, this is
> called "the cloud".

I thought "the cloud" was the name of the NSA's server?

> Even if it's similar hardware to what was in use
> on "the desktop" in the past (even this is debatable; the only
> similarity is really the ISA, x86, and parts of the associated
> peripheral architecture) the deployment model is vastly different.
> 
> Part of this is the pushing of the thin client model on devices, which
> probably makes sense, from lots of standpoints: power-consumption,
> avoiding malware, protecting data against device loss/theft, etc. But
> it also means that development for mobile devices will probably
> continue to entail development of corresponding server-side
> components.

Have they solved spectrum crunch yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqmKg6QQTw

*shrug* Within IBM, one of the main uses of the original PC was to run  
a tn3270 client in software. But the PC grew legs, I still expect the  
phone to do so. Transition's likely to take a while, but expecting  
conventional linux on the desktop to suddenly matter more? Well, at  
least we're making a unified effort:

https://lwn.net/Articles/564369/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/04/mozilla-will-give-you-a-free-firefox-phone-if-you-port-your-app/
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130923/BUSINESS/309230002/Google-banking-new-Chromebook-lineup
http://dot.kde.org/2013/09/05/plasma-active-4-ready-when-you-are

> Rich

Rob