From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 23 16:11:50 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5EF314DF; Fri, 23 May 2014 16:11:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206c::16:87]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 45CEE2D00; Fri, 23 May 2014 16:11:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [IPv6:::1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.8/8.14.8) with ESMTP id s4NGBmr6009078; Fri, 23 May 2014 16:11:49 GMT (envelope-from jonathan.robert.anderson@gmail.com) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 7.3 \(1878.2\)) Subject: Re: [GSoC] Machine readable output from userland utilities From: Jonathan Anderson In-Reply-To: Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 13:41:50 -0230 Message-Id: <9D7D4A7D-31F0-45D8-8C16-977D4FA879D6@gmail.com> References: <49E9736E-AD14-4647-8B15-30603D01360C@mail.bg> <537F0DD9.6090805@highsecure.ru> <537F11A9.8020504@mu.org> To: Adrian Chadd X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1878.2) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Sat, 24 May 2014 18:31:07 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.18 Cc: Alfred Perlstein , FreeBSD Hackers X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 16:11:50 -0000 On 23 May 2014, at 13:34, Adrian Chadd wrote: > I'd actually prefer that some library API (like what's in libstatfoo) > gets fleshed out to cover what hooks and options are required so you > don't have to have the bikeshed argument of "what format." You only > need to write some code to output it in the format you want. >=20 > The UNIX way is tools, not policy. The library is a policy, sure, but > it's a policy to let you define your own policies. It won't be locking > anyone into anything like "json or bust." >=20 > So how about the focus be on that, rather than trying to teach > individual tools about individual encoding types? I think that's pretty much what the proposal says: > I'm planning to create a unified output abstraction in the form of a > library. The tools supporting the machine-readable output feature > will write output exclusively using the library. The exact output = format > will be customizable. Several backend libraries (like libucl and = libnv) > can be used to implement different formats. Am I perhaps misunderstanding you, and you're actually saying "let's not = get distracted by bikesheds, the proposal is terrific as-is"? Jon -- Jonathan Anderson jonathan@FreeBSD.org http://freebsd.org/~jonathan/=