From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.6 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN,FREEMAIL_FROM, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [50.116.15.146]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A43E243ED for ; Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:37:51 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC57343C00; Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:37:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-pg1-x52b.google.com (mail-pg1-x52b.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::52b]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 41A9F43BF7 for ; Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:37:41 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-pg1-x52b.google.com with SMTP id 41be03b00d2f7-709423bc2e5so423190a12.0 for ; Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:37:41 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20230601; t=1718865460; x=1719470260; darn=tuhs.org; h=mime-version:message-id:date:references:in-reply-to:subject:cc:to :from:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=fLvP5o9UI4A/zYAlqGaPNFpDgn7MA4EgUGWqp6foqjM=; b=jqrrQhnUHZ/vkpQE56zk+ehTJeXw7w2MXfK1f9UqMfZpX33YD9/5baMWVWUrn07F25 1ba1dZEhkiGdqrAdVQCjBmtNC2RxwQVAhk8FgZoDYPn9ryxo5QCwtee28/Yy5OgWR3+H V5A4i0cxCdQgT5G+H7t476qUAy0k6GLldb+EcAwElxm9ZP7tHwL52PRHePkCi2fPpCRw +0czDMlihXvV5pqCE7vo8xizkIDuYz8I57QfCYg1plRBOSkm6ndDh71V/UhiFSvIGmlU 6SaWpt3g8fGY3aa8IXMNxK/FsPyt3PKlmFHPTgdZlYvUfNsaMf1hO9ndW3reyXepMg0y +Gzw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1718865460; x=1719470260; h=mime-version:message-id:date:references:in-reply-to:subject:cc:to :from:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=fLvP5o9UI4A/zYAlqGaPNFpDgn7MA4EgUGWqp6foqjM=; b=cvWHBKJXjuxNwt59uTu7pUvqK/YPWUs6/0VbsfD9BVBDbE15pJSx2GOZL3uNK1yiCm zSJw6myGLd8zuRt+bstcZ+/7V+sx2F1R7Ia9NJTL0+KV3rBslx50lE9IWbqK3eOr5o3j dj4yQ4H35tN8u0VMxmEC+CXN9YSDEzZ93DwZBs9jQT4MzQdaR5vwhO1GLY6A5P5IFKL1 STA4VDh4fZGOnxMV1QmZe64fEAn6iUdyv4hxw0xn2huMbEhcqNYUKrK6JLaR136LhEFf Hq6KOkuKx9FY0+zxaVkzr/NaQGS+kPxjj/TM4S1QPYLQlnH3ZjQ4lcoKump//OTGBXmN jPpg== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0Yy78wwhFcSdaI8beYZpsIsr1mCfvdSAnpcPt40jYX1LTerA6P9L mnCW+0qNJKkCLHf+sWoMx1jmcKssHbhTi/IXus8xXVHSAfuCJ8UgE6RbzA== X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IGlnLo08LR2ANz8lVYRpGZhB+QGh12E+bWlyGvIoJZF0tWDBj/Ey+zKgUuhxrNBDSb0J5ETiA== X-Received: by 2002:a17:90a:c083:b0:2c3:40b7:1f6d with SMTP id 98e67ed59e1d1-2c7b4c50dacmr5573670a91.0.1718865459947; Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:37:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([101.119.106.114]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id 98e67ed59e1d1-2c7e53e065bsm848596a91.14.2024.06.19.23.37.38 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:37:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Alexis To: The Unix Heritage Society In-Reply-To: (George Michaelson's message of "Thu, 20 Jun 2024 15:32:17 +1000") References: Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:37:35 +1000 Message-ID: <87jzikt900.fsf@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID-Hash: VHEN2NPU72VO53ZBROML7PQRZ5Z3NJIX X-Message-ID-Hash: VHEN2NPU72VO53ZBROML7PQRZ5Z3NJIX X-MailFrom: flexibeast@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' The Register List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: George Michaelson writes: > we used to argue about that. I disliked autoconf because I felt > 99% of > the work could be precomputed, which is what MIT X11 Makefiles > did: > they had recipes for the common architectures. A point still being made: > So, okay, fine, at some point it made sense to run programs to > empirically determine what was supported on a given system. What > I don't understand is why we kept running those stupid little > shell snippets and little bits of C code over and over. It's > like, okay, we established that this particular system does > with two args, not three. So why the > hell are we constantly testing for it over and over? > > Why didn't we end up with a situation where it was just a > standard thing that had a small number of possible values, and > it would just be set for you somewhere? Whoever was responsible > for building your system (OS company, distribution packagers, > whatever) could leave something in /etc that says "X = flavor 1, > Y = flavor 2" and so on down the line. > > And, okay, fine, I get that there would have been all kinds of > "real OS companies" that wouldn't have wanted to stoop to the > level of the dirty free software hippies. Whatever. Those same > hippies could have run the tests ONCE per platform/OS combo, put > the results into /etc themselves, and then been done with it. > > Then instead of testing all of that shit every time we built > something from source, we'd just drag in the pre-existing > results and go from there. It's not like the results were going > to change on us. They were a reflection of the way the kernel, C > libraries, APIs and userspace happened to work. Short of that > changing, the results wouldn't change either. --https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/04/02/autoconf/ Alexis.