Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:07:48 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: Doug@gorean.org (Doug) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What to tell to Linux-centric people?! Message-ID: <199907292007.NAA29868@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9907281723420.15263-100000@dt011n65.san.rr.com> from "Doug" at Jul 28, 99 05:30:01 pm
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> > And I tried rerunning the shell script under all the other > > shells on the box, but it failed for lack of bash "extensions". > > > > My conclusion? > > > > "Standard plus extensions" is the same thing as "non-standard". > > > > I guess whoever wrote bash never had to deal with NDS being > > "Standard X.500 plus Novell extensions" or the Novell print > > model being "Palladium plus Novell extensions". > > > > Morons who add extensions, and then turn them on by default, > > are the bane of interoperability everywhere. > > Aren't we mixing apples and cumquats here? No. > You can't blame the shell itself if some twit writes a script > that's supposed to be portable using non-portable scripting > conventions, can you? Yes, I can. Scripting should be, by definition, twit-proof. No exceptions. > I'm one of the biggest Bash advocates I know, but whenever I > write sh scripts I am very careful to use only standard sh bits. Well, you aren't a twit. 8-). An apt analogy would be to say that the person who dies without ever getting into an automobile accident didn't need to use seatbelts, and so should have had the option of buying a car without them. > In fact, Bash is probably the most POSIX compliant shell going, > especially when invoked as sh. Does this turn off extensions? If it doesn't, then it isn't. > At the same time, I share your frustration with the "web of > dependencies" that seems to envelop anything that goes near a GNU product. > Bash is better than most, but obviously my preference would be that it was > less GNU (and/or GPL, yes, I realize they aren't totally the same thing), > but that's how the sky falls sometimes. I'm not complaining about the sky falling; we were asked why we (the people who do not like bash) don't like bash. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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