Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 14:13:35 -0800 (PST) From: Jackie 'business-first' Cook <jackie@businessman.pl> To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Motion for removal of xargs(1) from base system Message-ID: <20011210221335.ACEB137B405@hub.freebsd.org>
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There are days when people get tired with the lagacy code in the system - when
things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick and tired with one of
those things. The command is, as you could have guessed from the subject,
xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and cluttered piece of code. Faulty and
hard to use command. It's idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime they
use/or just try to use it.
Moreover short research I've conducted showed, that excessive use of xargs(1)
can cause nausea, vomiting and migrene. The very presence of xargs(1) in the
system, caused in some cases severe brain damage. Therefore I propose removal of
xargs(1) from base system and moving it to ports tree. The new port in
sysutils/xargs should be marked as BROKEN just after creation - that's obvious.
Short procedure for removing xargs(1) from your life:
Version #1 - for experienced sysadmins (local solution):
rm -f /usr/bin/xargs (the -f is for those lucky ones who have ditched
xargs(1) long ago, but just want to make sure
it will vanish for good)
Version #2 - for enterprise (ie. business) users, who are searching for their
way in life (overwhelming majority) (local solution, still):
find / -print0 | grep -v xargs | xargs -0 rm -f {} \;
(the -v switch for grep adds some *verbosity*
during operation)
Version #3 - for commiters only (global solution, all FreeBSD users are urged to
cvs up/cvsup right after the commit, but one of presented local
solutions is still necessary to get rid of the venerous xargs(1)
from your system):
freefall% rm -rf $CVSROOT/src/usr.bin/xargs
(to trash it altogether with version history,
and make sure it will never come back)
As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
system.
Yours sincerly, Jackie 'business-first' Cook.
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