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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 32761 invoked from network); 19 Nov 2021 20:17:16 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 19 Nov 2021 20:17:16 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 4BBB193DF0; Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:17:14 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F26F393D61; Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:14:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 38F0F93D61; Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:14:48 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CB7CF93D5E for ; Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:14:47 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 41FE735E32F; Fri, 19 Nov 2021 12:14:47 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2021 12:14:47 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Alan Glasser Message-ID: <20211119201447.GF15051@mcvoy.com> References: <202111161754.1AGHsGsN929905@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <50F3E958-F0A4-4895-B1BC-41A2644A074A@oclsc.org> <20211118003512.GN15051@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Subject: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation [ reallly inscrutable languages ] 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: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" All the time. A merge in BitKeeper (which is SCCS based, I rewrote SCCS from scratch and evolved it quite a bit) is just a get -e -ir1,r2,r3,r4 where the include list is all the revs on the branch being merged. That's the beauty of SCCS that seems to be lost to the rest of the world: if someone added N bytes on the branch, the merge passes that to the trunk by *reference*, every other SCM that is in current use copies the branch data to the trunk. Suppose Rob had done a bunch of important work on the branch, you had done some work on the trunk, and for whatever reason, I merged Rob's work. Let's say everything automerged. In SCCS or BitKeeper, the only new data in the file is a merge node that says "Include all of Rob's work". In all other systems in use today, there would be a merge node with another copy of Rob's work with me as the author because I did the merge. Blech. Strangely enough, ClearCase has a weave format like SCCS and they could have done merges by reference and they choose to copy it. I dunno who the idiot was that made that decision. On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 03:04:37PM -0500, Alan Glasser wrote: > Larry, > > Did you ever try the -i or -x options on get(1) to include or exclude > deltas? > > Alan > > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 7:39 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > I'll defend perl, at least perl4, vigorously. I wrote a lot of code in > > it on 20mhz SPARCs. Yeah, like any kitchen sink language you have to > > develop a style, but it is possible. All of Solaris 2.0 development > > happened under a source management system I wrote, NSElite, that was > > almost 100% perl4. There was one C program, that Marc might like, > > that took 2 SCCS files that had the initial part of the graph in > > common but the recent nodes were different in each file, and zippered > > them together into a new SCCS file that had the newer nodes on a > > branch. It was F.A.S.T compared to the edit/delta cycles you'd > > do if you did it by hand. > > > > My perl4 was maintainable, I fixed bugs in it quickly. > > > > When it happened, perl4 was a God send, as much as I love awk, perl > > was far more useful for stuff that awk just didn't want to handle. > > > > On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 09:21:49AM +1100, Rob Pike wrote: > > > Perl certainly had its detractors, but for a few years there it was the > > > lingua franca of system administration. > > > > > > -rob > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 8:21 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 3:54 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > > >> On Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 1:48 PM Dan Stromberg > > wrote: > > > >> > > > >>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 11:35 AM Norman Wilson > > wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>>> Wasn't Perl created to fill this void? > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Void? I thought Perl was created to fill a much-needed gap. > > > >>>> > > > >>> There was and is a need for something to sit between Shell and C. > > But > > > >>> it needn't be filled by Perl. > > > >>> > > > >>> The chief problem with Perl, as I see it, is it's like 10 languages > > > >>> smashed together. To write it, you only need to know one of the > > 10. But > > > >>> to read it, you never know what subset you're going to see until > > you're > > > >>> deep in the code. > > > >>> > > > >>> Perl is the victim of an experiment in exuberant, Opensource design, > > > >>> where the bar to adding a new feature was troublingly low. > > > >>> > > > >>> It was undeniably influential. > > > >>> > > > >> > > > >> It's what paved the way for python to fill that gap... > > > >> > > > > > > > > I feel that Perl, and to a lesser extent Tcl, opened the floodgates > > for a > > > > number of relatively lightweight "scripting" languages that sat > > between C > > > > and the shell in terms of their functionality and expressive power. > > From > > > > that group, the one I liked best was Ruby, but it got hijacked by > > Rails and > > > > Python swooped in and stole its thunder. > > > > > > > > - Dan C. > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > --- > > Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com > > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm > > -- --- Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm