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From: Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com>
To: TUHS main list <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces [ meta issues ]
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2021 14:32:06 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <202107312132.16VLW6VD2410038@fourwinds.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29to=A77KqHo8M9KjY4UW6cTaWqrqEKj8SpTPMtj9JYQpFA@mail.gmail.com>

Richard Salz writes:
> On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 3:21 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
>
> > opinion, it doesn't add value to do something that's already been done
> > but differently; it detracts from value because now there's yet another
> > competing way to do something.
> >
>
> You mean like not using getopt and rolling your own?  Shrug.
>
> while ((i = getopt(argc, argv, "xxxxx:xxxx")) != -1)
>    switch (i) {
>    case ....
>   }
> argc -= optind;
> argv += optind;
>
> So I never got getopt().  One of my rules is that I don't use a library
> > in cases where the number of lines of gunk that that it takes to use a
> > library function is >= the number of lines to just write it myself.
>
>
> I don't know, what lines in the above are extra beyond what you write?  The
> last two if being generous I suppose.

Well, in my opinion that's not really an accurate representation of using getopt.

I would of course write the #include line, and the table of options, which would
end up being >= the number of lines that it takes me to do this...

	while (--argc > 0) {
		if (*(++argv)[0] == '-') {
			for (p = *argv + 1; *p != '\0'; p++) {
				switch (*p) {

Even if it took a few more lines to do it my way, I'm a believer that good coding
style keeps "meatspace locality of reference" in mind.  As programmers, we put in
a lot of effort to ensure locality of reference for computers, but then completely
toss it for people who aren't as good as it.  So given a choice of a few lines of
code versus having to look something up somewhere else, I choose the few lines of
code.

Being a geezer, I have lots of code lying around from which I can extract working
fragments such as the one above.  Writing those few lines of code provides insulation
from supply-side attack vectors bugs in libraries, versioning issues, having to load
debug libraries, and so on.

I realize that this isn't a huge deal by itself; it's a philosophical point.  When
I strace any random program that I didn't write I'm astonished by the amount of
library loading that takes place.  So any issues are multiplied by n.

Don't get me wrong; I use plenty of libraries.  But I tend to use those for stuff
that is so common that there is a benefit from shared libraries (or at least there
was before everything got containerized) and for libraries that do actual hard stuff.
But I don't use libraries for small snippets of code that I could easily write
myself yielding better code clarity for others reading my code.

Jon

  reply	other threads:[~2021-07-31 21:33 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 72+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-07-31 12:25 [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces Michael Siegel
2021-07-31 13:05 ` Dan Halbert
2021-07-31 14:21 ` Adam Thornton
2021-07-31 14:25   ` Adam Thornton
2021-07-31 15:45 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 16:03   ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:06     ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 16:21       ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:17     ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:30       ` Dan Cross
2021-07-31 15:56 ` Paul Winalski
2021-07-31 16:19   ` Dan Cross
2021-08-01 17:44     ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 21:53       ` Dan Cross
2021-08-01 23:21         ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 23:36         ` John Cowan
2021-08-01 23:49           ` Larry McVoy
2021-08-02  0:28             ` Larry McVoy
2021-08-01 23:58           ` Dan Cross
2021-08-02  0:29             ` Steve Nickolas
2021-08-02  0:13           ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02  0:18             ` John Cowan
2021-08-02  0:54               ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02  1:04               ` Dan Cross
2021-08-02  1:05             ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-08-02  2:10               ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02  2:32               ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-02 17:33             ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-09-28 17:46             ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-28 18:10               ` Larry McVoy
2021-09-29 16:40                 ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-29 16:57                   ` Larry McVoy
2021-09-30 17:31                     ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-29 23:10               ` Phil Budne
2021-08-02 17:37           ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-08-02 18:52             ` Clem Cole
2021-08-02 20:59               ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 21:06                 ` Al Kossow
2021-08-02 21:14                 ` Clem Cole
2021-08-02 21:13               ` Clem Cole
2021-08-01 16:51   ` Michael Siegel
2021-08-01 17:31     ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 16:41 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 17:41   ` John Cowan
2021-07-31 17:30 ` Anthony Martin
2021-07-31 17:46   ` John Cowan
2021-07-31 18:56   ` Michael Siegel
2021-07-31 19:41     ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 21:30       ` Michael Siegel
2021-08-01 17:48     ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 19:23       ` Richard Salz
2021-08-01 23:26         ` Chet Ramey
2021-07-31 19:20 ` [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces [ meta issues ] Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 21:06   ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 21:32     ` Jon Steinhart [this message]
2021-07-31 21:37       ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 21:55         ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:10       ` Warner Losh
2021-07-31 22:19         ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-31 22:20         ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 23:26           ` Warner Losh
2021-07-31 23:41             ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:04   ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:13     ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-31 22:14       ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:17         ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:16     ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:20       ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-01 18:17 Douglas McIlroy
2021-08-01 19:48 ` arnold
2021-08-01 21:30   ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 12:11   ` Steffen Nurpmeso

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