Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 10:18:06 +1100 From: Zero Sum <count@shalimar.net.au> To: Sebastiaan van Erk <sebster@sebster.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: argument list too long Message-ID: <00111810180600.08749@shalimar.net.au> In-Reply-To: <20001117125652.A91692@sebster.com> References: <20001116122313.A69018@sebster.com> <00111722151204.01989@shalimar.net.au> <20001117125652.A91692@sebster.com>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Friday 17 November 2000 22:56, Sebastiaan van Erk wrote: > Zero Sum wrote: > > > Let's get a bit of truth here, no one is saying that getting arguments from > > a file is not a good idea. In fact a fundamental examination shows that it > > was always meant to be used that way. In unix everything is represented as > > a file. Stdin, out and err, are 'just files'. Devices are 'just files. > > Why not have a stdarg file? Which can read arguments one by one. Then the > shell can implement tar `find /` by two concurrent processes. > Not a problem. It's just wouldn't be Unix (or Linux). Almost every piece of software ever written for Unix makes assunptions about the first three (pre opened) IO channels (files). You want to make that four file, not three, no problem. But dont expect anyone else to be interested. I don't feel like a total rewrite of all the software in the O/S and currently in use. If you want to write a new operting system and all its ports and applications over such a silly thing as stdarg, well go right ahead. Plenty of people have wasted their lives to little effect. -[snip]- > > So things are still broken (as I try to explain above), and I still think > it needs fixing (stdarg construction, or standard --args-from-file option > or somesuch). > I'll tell you again, and I see, I'm not the only one. Nothing is 'broken'. Nothing needs fixing. 'stdargs' would break everything we have and require a full and total rewrite. The Russians once built trinary, not binary computers because they were more efficient. Unfortunatelyt, the investment in binary was already so big that they just go further and further behind. > > Unix is very good at running lots of small jobs very quickly and shares > > resources well. > > And wouldn't it be great if it was EVEN better! > Which *NOT* what you are proposing. You are proposing something else. Geoff -- count@shalimar.net.au Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 5.0i for non-commercial use MessageID: F3zQKzhVv4Jn1FAcJGiOkhpUqNxTjbZL iQA/AwUBOhW8ufh4xz7LU/evEQI2XACgsahoP4q6WseqGMLwX4GU79Dst98AoJ0J 9ZMXQBi6kkp3g3zJ9uZ6N60U =X3Ts -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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