From owner-freebsd-arch Tue Jul 16 11:12:43 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 603D237B400 for ; Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:12:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 974D443E64 for ; Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:12:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.12.3/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g6GIAUXB086752; Tue, 16 Jul 2002 20:10:31 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Garance A Drosihn Cc: Mark Valentine , freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: scripting language in base system? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 16 Jul 2002 12:35:55 EDT." Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 20:10:30 +0200 Message-ID: <86751.1026843030@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >You're a step ahead of where I am. I meant listing my thoughts >on just whether we even *should* have a higher-level scripting >language in the base system -- never mind what it might look >like! I have definite, firm opinions on both sides of the >matter... I think the conclusion is that yes, in theory it would be wonderful to have a high-level language in the tree, except that it isn't wonderful in practice. Any piece of externally developed software is a PITA, the more active development the more pain. This disadvantages practically all relevant languages. If the language tried to bind to C API's in binary fashion, it becomes radically MD and gets a architecture hazzle. ("Lex Perl"). Finally, the fact that there isn't a standard which says "this is the official scripting language of any respectable UNIX" [1] means that including any particular language will make it magic to FreeBSD (why does "foo" live in /usr/bin instead of /usr/local/bin ???) I wish we could hold a giant Bake-off, throw all the contenders into the pot, let them solve a number of excercises, have people vote on the results, and then all unix'en accepts the winner and implements it in a uniform fashion. I'd like peace on Balkan while we're at it. Unfortunately, this is like making people decide on the one and only kind and color of car for everybody to use. I would be smarter in a lot of ways, spare-parts, education etc etc, but it just ain't gonna happen. Summary: Forget it. [1] We're talking "higher-level than /bin/sh" here. The crucial feature is C language extension without fork(2)/exec(2) overhead. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message