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 19688 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2023 17:43:36 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 2 Jan 2023 17:43:36 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFBDB4247B; Tue, 3 Jan 2023 03:43:12 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4D1234247A for ; Tue, 3 Jan 2023 03:43:06 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 716E235E848; Mon, 2 Jan 2023 09:43:04 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2023 09:43:04 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Adam Thornton Message-ID: <20230102174304.GM25547@mcvoy.com> References: <52FB6638-AEFF-4A4F-8C2E-32089D577BA0@planet.nl> <464819f0-d2f6-2a60-6481-a194f4428b4d@case.edu> <20221230200246.GW5825@mcvoy.com> <88f83b4c-b3f9-ed87-b2fa-560fb369742a@makerlisp.com> <20221231035931.GG5825@mcvoy.com> <528f0c53-ccc2-88a1-5a7b-120362c648dd@mhorton.net> <20230102165120.GK25547@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) Message-ID-Hash: MWRWNJJ7PIFE35UWXLUT4MWOKOLJC5OO X-Message-ID-Hash: MWRWNJJ7PIFE35UWXLUT4MWOKOLJC5OO X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: A few comments on porting the Bourne shell List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Mon, Jan 02, 2023 at 10:32:50AM -0700, Adam Thornton wrote: > But of course the "after it had had a few years to settle" is doing > a lot of lifting there. During the Unix Wars, yeah, clearly using > v7 sh as lowest-common-denominator was the right choice. After the > establishment of Linux Hegemony sometime in the early 2000s, I think I > remember that you could pretty much count on everyone at least providing > a POSIX shell, even if it wasn't the default. (But of course by then, > "everyone" that wasn't Linux or OS X was already down to more-or-less Sun, > IBM, HP, and DEC/Compaq.) I was supporting a commercial product in the early 2000's and there were all sorts of systems then that had old shells. Yes, you could make everything a 2 level thing where the first level finds the correct shell, but that's just fuss. Just make things portable, it's not that hard and it works everywhere. When you get to the commercial world, you'd be stunned to see how long old machines last. If they are solving some problem, and they aren't broken, nobody replaces them. I'll bet you anything there are still SCO registers out there, I'll bet there are still PDP-11s out there. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.