From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 2 15:08:41 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1BC08BCF for ; Mon, 2 Mar 2015 15:08:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from udns.ultimatedns.net (unknown [IPv6:2602:d1:b4d6:e600:4261:86ff:fef6:aa2a]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DCCFB380 for ; Mon, 2 Mar 2015 15:08:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ultimatedns.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by udns.ultimatedns.net (8.14.9/8.14.9) with ESMTP id t22F9dUA047085 for ; Mon, 2 Mar 2015 07:09:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bsd-lists@bsdforge.com) To: In-Reply-To: References: <54F31510.7050607@hot.ee> <54F34B6E.2040809@astrodoggroup.com> <54F35F29.4000603@astrodoggroup.com> <75C49F53-C675-4712-A446-370025EED037@me.com>, From: "Chris H" Subject: Re: Massive libxo-zation that breaks everything Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2015 07:09:39 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=fixed MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2015 15:08:41 -0000 On Mon, 2 Mar 2015 09:23:55 +0000 David Chisnall wrote > On 1 Mar 2015, at 21:29, Rui Paulo wrote: > > > > On Mar 1, 2015, at 11:11, David Chisnall wrote: > >> How would it be in a port? It involves modifying core utilities (some of > >> which, like ifconfig, rely on kernel APIs that change between releases) to > >> emit structured output. Maintaining two copies of each utility, one in the > >> base system with plain-text output only and another in ports with XML/JSON > >> output would be very painful. > > > It would work fine if we had *libraries* for ifconfig/netstat/route/etc. > > Obviously that's not the case and no one has stepped up to implement them. > > I've also seen FreeBSD committers expressing their distaste for libraries for > > "trivial" command line utilities, which implies they are unaware of another > > world beyond the CLI. :-) > > I am completely in favour of libraries for the underlying functionality of > these commands and would love to see all of the system management commands > become thin wrappers around a library, though it's a lot of engineering work. > In particular, these libraries will need to have stable APIs that we can > support across multiple major releases, and getting those right is difficult. > We really don't want to be stuck in 10 years maintaining a hastily designed > API for a library. > > I see one use of the libxo output as helping to design those APIs. People > are going to wrap various tools in libraries for their favourite scripting > languages and this will give us a corpus for experimenting. > > It's also worth noting that often invoking a tool and consuming its output is > the easiest way to get a stable API and ABI where performance is not a > primary concern (i.e. most management interfaces). > > As to a world beyond the CLI, I saw a nice demo a few years ago of a terminal > emulator that used WebKit and came with a hacked-up set of parsers for common > tools. I'd love to have something simpler (no need for a full WebKit - > simple outline and table views would be enough and could be done with curses > for ssh) for FreeBSD where I could type ls in the CLI and get a table view > that I could then sort and filter by selecting column headings. Those of us > that have used Lisp and Smalltalk environments know that a CLI doesn't have > to be a teletype emulator. Apologies in advance, if I'm way off base, or simply reiterating here; But what about something like kernshell(1)? Every database has it's own "shell", the system has it's own contributed shells. Couldn't a shell be adapted with a language/dialect to make use of already existing parsers/languages/3rd party utilities? Then it would simply be one item to maintain, and the language could be modified/adapted, as needed. Again, apologies, if I haven't thought this through enough. But in an effort to simplify everything, for all concerned. This seemed like a possible direction. So thought I'd mention it. --Chris > > David > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"