From: Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>
To: Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 17:25:47 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W59r-6sh+2i9X2VkW8txAB5Aa3B1Jdh7ubVauB=QsymVw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202108022106.172L6I1i135429@darkstar.fourwinds.com>
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On Mon, Aug 2, 2021 at 5:19 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
> 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".
>
That's a bit unfair. One can understand something and see value in it and
still appreciate its limitations.
Fork has served us well for more than five decades; I've got no argument
with that. However, should we never question whether it continues to be the
right, or best, abstraction as the environment around it continues to
evolve?
- Dan C.
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-08-02 21:26 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 87+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-08-02 2:42 Douglas McIlroy
2021-08-02 14:58 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-08-02 18:15 ` Adam Thornton
2021-08-02 18:24 ` Warner Losh
2021-08-02 20:55 ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 21:06 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-08-02 21:25 ` Dan Cross [this message]
2021-08-02 21:59 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-08-02 22:33 ` John Cowan
2021-08-03 0:20 ` [TUHS] fork (Re: " Bakul Shah
2021-08-03 0:59 ` Adam Thornton
2021-08-03 1:20 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-08-03 0:21 ` [TUHS] " Bakul Shah
2021-08-03 1:49 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-08-03 3:21 ` Adam Thornton
2021-08-03 3:27 ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-03 3:51 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-08-03 7:19 ` arnold
2021-08-03 23:12 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-04 15:04 ` Paul Winalski
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2021-10-01 12:11 Paul Ruizendaal
2021-09-30 11:41 Douglas McIlroy
2021-09-29 18:07 Noel Chiappa
2021-09-29 19:04 ` Dan Cross
2021-09-29 19:12 ` Larry McVoy
2021-09-28 18:15 Noel Chiappa
2021-08-03 19:12 Douglas McIlroy
2021-08-03 15:01 Douglas McIlroy
2021-08-03 17:13 ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
2021-08-11 18:11 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2021-08-11 21:24 ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
2021-07-31 16:47 Ron Young
2021-08-02 2:34 ` Jim Carpenter
2021-08-02 2:38 ` Ron Young
2021-07-31 16:27 Nelson H. F. Beebe
2021-07-31 12:25 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
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