From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 20839 invoked from network); 2 Aug 2021 21:19:02 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 2 Aug 2021 21:19:02 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E00099CAAC; Tue, 3 Aug 2021 07:19:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 710A59CA63; Tue, 3 Aug 2021 07:18:49 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 979059CA63; Tue, 3 Aug 2021 07:18:48 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 748 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2021 07:18:47 AEST Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6FD959CA60 for ; Tue, 3 Aug 2021 07:18:47 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.16.1/8.15.2) with ESMTP id 172L6IX6135442 for ; Mon, 2 Aug 2021 14:06:18 -0700 Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.16.1/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 172L6I1i135429 for ; Mon, 2 Aug 2021 14:06:18 -0700 Message-Id: <202108022106.172L6I1i135429@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society In-reply-to: References: Comments: In-reply-to John Cowan message dated "Mon, 02 Aug 2021 16:55:32 -0400." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <135427.1627938378.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2021 14:06:18 -0700 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Subject: Re: [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" John Cowan writes: > > > fork() is a great model for a single-threaded text processing pipeline to > > do automated typesetting. (More generally, anything that is a > > straightforward composition of filter/transform stages.) Which is, y'know, > > what Unix is *for*. > > > > Indeed. But it's also a very good model for "baking" web pages in the > background so that you can serve them up with a plain dumb web server, > maybe with a bit of JS to provide some auto-updating, especially if the > source data is stored not in a database but in the file system. The result > is a page that displays (modulo network latency) as fast as you can hit the > Enter key in the address bar. > > (The weak point is the lack of dependency management when the system is too > big to rebake all the pages each time. Perhaps make(1), which Alex Shinn > described as "a beautiful little Prolog for the file system", is the Right > Thing.) We have, of course, had similar discussions many times on this list. I think that the root issue is the false equivalence of "I don't understand this well enough to be able to use it effectively to solve my problem" with "it's broken/obsolete/dated".