From: ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
To: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
Cc: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' The Register
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:12:45 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAP6exYJiMaa8Hky-ZBxGoUM8HmjJ-AK=mQDQ88NrHhDEDCaEjA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfpvZqPhO4J9p7Cp=vCAAehufSq5k5QWu7J8ZdLwOyhffg@mail.gmail.com>
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The slurm configure, produced by the configure script, is 1 mbyte, 30,000
lines of impenetrable script. For each .c file in slurm, an 11960 line
libtool script is invoked. autoconfig uses m4. When I told Eric Grosse,
back in 2015, that *anything* still used m4, he would not believe it was
"the m4 from the 70s" until I showed him. He was speechless. He had assumed
m4 died in the 80s.
Personally, the autoconfig process does not fill me with confidence, and it
was recently responsible for a very serious security problem. And,
autoconfig doesn't work: I've lost track of how many times autoconf has
failed for me. In general, in my experience, autoconf makes for less
portability, not more.
For a good example of a very portable system with a very clean,
human-readable make setup, I'd recommend a look at plan9ports. It includes
2 window managers, 2 graphical editors, and all the Plan 9 tools, and
somehow manages to be at least as portable as the autoconf mechanism.
On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 12:59 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
> For me, precomputing an environment is the same as a wysiwyg editor: what
> you see is all you get. If it works for you, and the environment that's
> inferred from predefined CPP symbols is correct, then it's an easy
> solution. When it's not, and for me it often wasn't, it's nothing but pain
> and suffering and saying MF all the time (also not Make File).... I was
> serious when I've said I've had more positive cmake experiences (which
> haven't been all that impressive: I'm more impressed with meson in this
> space, for example) than I ever had with IMakefiles, imake, xmkmf, etc...
> But It's also clear that different people have lived through different
> hassles, and I respect that...
>
> I've noticed too that we're relatively homogeneous these days: Everybody
> is a Linux box or Windows Box or MacOS, except for a few weird people on
> the fringes (like me). It's a lot easier to get things right enough w/o
> autotools, scons, meson, etc than it was in The Bad Old Days of the Unix
> Wars and the Innovation Famine that followed from the late 80s to the mid
> 2000s.... In that environment, there's one of two reactions: Test
> Everything or Least Common Denominator. And we've seen both represented in
> this thread. As well as the 'There's so few environments, can't you
> precompute them all?' sentiment from newbies that never bloodied their
> knuckles with some of the less like Research Unix machines out there like
> AIX and HP/UX... Or worse, Eunice...
>
> Warner
>
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 12:42 PM Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Someone clearly never used imake...
>>
>>
>> There's a reason that the xmkmf command ends in the two letters it does,
>> and I'm never going to believe it's "make file".
>>
>> Adam
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 11:34 AM Greg A. Woods <woods@robohack.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> At Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:01:01 -0400, Scot Jenkins via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> Subject: [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix
>>> philosophy' The Register
>>> >
>>> > "Greg A. Woods" <woods@robohack.ca> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > I will not ever allow cmake to run, or even exist, on the machines I
>>> > > control...
>>> >
>>> > I'm not a fan of cmake either.
>>> >
>>> > How do you deal with software that only builds with cmake (or meson,
>>> > scons, ... whatever the developer decided to use as the build tool)?
>>> > What alternatives exist short of reimplementing the build process in
>>> > a standard makefile by hand, which is obviously very time consuming,
>>> > error prone, and will probably break the next time you want to update
>>> > a given package?
>>>
>>> The alternative _is_ to reimplement the build process.
>>>
>>> For example, see:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/robohack/yajl/
>>>
>>> This example is a far more comprehensive rewrite than is usually
>>> necessary as I wanted a complete and portable example that could be used
>>> as the basis for further projects.
>>>
>>> An example of a much simpler reimplementation:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://cvsweb.NetBSD.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/mit/ctwm/bin/ctwm/Makefile?rev=1.12&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup&only_with_tag=MAIN
>>>
>>> --
>>> Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>
>>>
>>> Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
>>> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com> Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>
>>>
>>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-06-20 20:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 174+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-06-13 14:56 [TUHS] Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-06-13 15:33 ` [TUHS] " Dan Cross
2024-06-13 15:35 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' ??? " Larry McVoy
2024-06-13 15:41 ` Alan D. Salewski
2024-06-13 15:55 ` Steve Nickolas
2024-06-13 15:39 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Clem Cole
2024-06-13 16:47 ` Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS
2024-06-13 18:39 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-13 18:45 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' ??? " Mychaela Falconia
2024-06-14 8:59 ` Ralph Corderoy
2024-06-13 18:54 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Dan Cross
2024-06-12 19:29 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' " Greg A. Woods
2024-06-13 20:03 ` Dan Cross
2024-06-13 17:07 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-14 14:17 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2024-06-16 5:48 ` Alexis
2024-06-15 8:48 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-16 19:44 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-17 0:10 ` Peter Yardley
2024-06-17 0:29 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-17 1:01 ` Alexis
2024-06-17 1:21 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-17 1:25 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-17 1:32 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-17 19:21 ` Stuff Received
2024-06-17 19:28 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-17 22:34 ` Steve Nickolas
2024-06-16 7:57 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-17 23:44 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-18 0:06 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-18 22:44 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-19 2:33 ` David Arnold
2024-06-18 1:52 ` Steve Nickolas
2024-06-18 4:52 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-18 22:50 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-18 23:03 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-18 23:27 ` ron minnich
2024-06-19 1:38 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2024-06-19 1:42 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-19 23:28 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-20 5:01 ` Scot Jenkins via TUHS
2024-06-20 5:09 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-20 5:18 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-20 18:34 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-20 18:41 ` Adam Thornton
2024-06-20 19:59 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-20 20:12 ` ron minnich [this message]
2024-06-20 20:22 ` Adam Thornton
2024-06-20 20:29 ` ron minnich
2024-06-21 15:46 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 16:06 ` Henry Bent
2024-06-21 16:24 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 16:40 ` Henry Bent
2024-06-21 16:52 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-21 17:25 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 17:31 ` Phil Budne
2024-06-21 17:55 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-20 20:19 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-20 20:34 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-20 21:00 ` ron minnich
2024-06-20 21:53 ` David Arnold
2024-06-20 22:00 ` ron minnich
2024-06-20 22:11 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-20 22:35 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-21 13:57 ` Stuff Received
2024-06-20 19:57 ` [TUHS] Version 256.1: Now slightly less likely to delete /home Jim Capp
2024-06-20 8:05 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' The Register Steve Nickolas
2024-06-19 2:38 ` David Arnold
2024-06-19 22:52 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-19 0:08 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-19 0:46 ` Nevin Liber
2024-06-19 1:00 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-19 3:07 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-19 3:14 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-19 3:36 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-19 6:50 ` arnold
2024-06-19 11:28 ` sjenkin
2024-06-19 9:00 ` Ralph Corderoy
2024-06-19 13:28 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-19 14:44 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-19 14:53 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-19 15:08 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-19 15:11 ` G. Branden Robinson
2024-06-19 15:16 ` ron minnich
2024-06-19 15:59 ` Theodore Ts'o
2024-06-19 22:48 ` Kevin Bowling
2024-06-20 5:14 ` David Arnold
2024-06-20 5:32 ` George Michaelson
2024-06-20 6:37 ` Alexis
2024-06-20 7:07 ` David Arnold
2024-06-20 21:07 ` [TUHS] Building programs (Re: " Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-06-20 23:35 ` [TUHS] " Alexis
2024-06-21 0:05 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-21 0:34 ` Alexis
2024-06-21 0:54 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-21 1:06 ` G. Branden Robinson
2024-06-21 1:32 ` Alexis
2024-06-21 1:43 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-21 16:07 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 0:35 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-06-21 1:15 ` Alexis
2024-06-21 1:43 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-21 13:58 ` Alan D. Salewski
2024-06-21 0:35 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-21 0:49 ` Alexis
2024-06-21 1:22 ` Greg A. Woods
2024-06-21 1:44 ` Kevin Bowling
2024-06-21 15:57 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-22 0:04 ` Alexis
2024-06-22 17:53 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-22 18:15 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-22 21:16 ` David Arnold
2024-06-23 0:29 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-23 18:50 ` Theodore Ts'o
2024-06-23 18:56 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-23 20:15 ` Stuff Received
2024-06-24 14:03 ` Theodore Ts'o
2024-06-24 14:33 ` Dan Cross
2024-06-24 15:17 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-24 15:23 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 15:41 ` [TUHS] " Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-21 15:38 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-20 20:14 ` Alexander Schreiber
2024-06-16 6:43 ` Wesley Parish
2024-06-16 21:56 ` David Arnold
2024-06-16 23:34 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-16 23:46 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-17 21:40 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-06-17 0:54 ` Åke Nordin
2024-06-18 5:55 ` Alexis
2024-06-18 6:39 ` Michael Kjörling
2024-06-13 19:37 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Alan D. Salewski
2024-06-13 20:05 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-13 20:31 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-06-13 20:06 ` A. P. Garcia
2024-06-13 20:26 ` Jim Capp
2024-06-13 21:35 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' ??? " Larry McVoy
2024-06-14 0:27 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Alexis
2024-06-14 0:59 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' ??? " Larry McVoy
2024-06-14 1:11 ` Luther Johnson
2024-06-14 1:42 ` Alexis
2024-06-14 4:22 ` ron minnich
2024-06-14 6:54 ` Angel M Alganza
2024-06-14 7:04 ` Dave Horsfall
2024-06-14 7:33 ` arnold
2024-06-14 7:34 ` Andy Kosela
2024-06-14 7:44 ` Dave Horsfall
2024-06-14 11:31 ` Vincenzo Nicosia
2024-06-13 20:26 ` [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' • " Dave Horsfall
2024-06-14 11:32 ` Michael Kjörling
2024-06-14 12:21 ` A. P. Garcia
2024-06-18 12:02 ` Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS
2024-06-23 0:13 ` Dave Horsfall
2024-06-23 1:47 ` Alexis
2024-06-23 19:00 ` Theodore Ts'o
2024-06-23 20:04 ` Alexander Schreiber
2024-06-24 13:50 ` Theodore Ts'o
2024-06-24 14:21 ` Dan Cross
2024-06-26 7:39 ` Kevin Bowling
2024-06-24 15:03 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-06-17 0:48 [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' " Noel Chiappa
2024-06-17 1:02 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-17 1:05 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-17 3:56 ` ron minnich
2024-06-17 3:57 ` ron minnich
2024-06-17 5:41 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-06-17 5:51 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-06-17 15:56 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-17 16:00 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-17 16:59 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-06-17 16:43 ` Larry McVoy
2024-06-17 22:49 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-06-20 16:45 Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2024-06-20 18:32 ` Kevin Bowling
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