Re: wishlist

[Alan Watson <alan@oldp.astro.wisc.edu>]

John writes:

> Why are people looking for features to throw out of rc, anyway?

I'm English, so I like whining; an Australian should understand that.

> There are still some of us -- probably everyone on this list -- who believe
> that software bloat is bad, and that smaller, faster code is better.

Yes, but man page bloat is worse.

So, let me defend some of my statements:

(a) Here strings.

If echo is a built-in, here strings are redundant with echo and pipes
(more on why I think echo should be a built-in later).  Will anyone
argue with me that a redundant feature WHICH USERS NEVER USE DIRECTLY
should leave the language?

The only caveat is if the code to re-write functions in terms of echo
and pipes is more likely to be a problem to maintain than the current
code, and if Byron feels he has better things to do with his time (and
he almost certainly does).

(b) ``

> Its convenience certainly justifies its redundancy many times
> over.  It must stay.

I will accept an argument of convenience if you calculate the factional
occurance of `` in your history file, and if that faction is larger
than, say, 0.5%.  Typing convenience just doesn't wash in scripts.

Two ways to do one thing is bad, bad, bad.  Really sinful.  We should
either junk `` or ifs, and since the later comes handed down from the
heavens, the former must go.

(c) newpgrp

Perhaps I'm speaking from ignorance here, but what about a stand-alone
binary along the lines of nice, nohup, et al?  If people really want it
built-in, then they can hack addon.h.

(d) $^foo

Oops, Malte shows me up.  Same arguments as (b).

As I've mentioned in private email to Byron, I'm not going to stop
using rc just because these feature remain.  But my honest opinion is
that if the time Byron had to devote to rc was limitless, they should
be purged.  I'm sure he has better things to do, though.

Now, the big one, why should echo (and read) be built-in?

If all a shell does is fork and exec commands, they need not be there.
However, I would like to be able to use rc in the same manner as `awk'
-- read some data, match on it using ~, mess with it with some external
programs, and spit it out the other end.  awk is great for some stuff,
but it has it's limitations.  For example, I want be be able to parse
mail folders in rc.  To do this efficiently in rc, I need echo and read
to be built-in.  (This was never done very much in sh because quoting
becomes a nightmare.)

Perhaps this is misguided, but it seems a modest investment (two
primitives, both with historical precedent) for a vast increase in rc's
potential.

If echo becomes a de jure built-in, rather than remaining de facto, you
can still use "fn echo { /bin/echo $* }".