Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:24:22 -0700 From: Paul Traina <pst@shockwave.com> To: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: sgml formatting code Message-ID: <199706040524.WAA03281@precipice.shockwave.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 04 Jun 1997 14:34:09 %2B0930." <199706040504.OAA11867@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
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From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Subject: Re: sgml formatting code
The alternative is not _currently_ palatable; I agree that we need to
help make SoSy part of the solution.
I actually don't disagree with your goals, I disagree with your analysis. :-)
I'd rather not be saddled with ancient festery versions of perl and tcl,
which is what happens when they get bundled with the system. Yes, I can
install a perl5 port, but then I'm never quite sure which perl I'm running,
especially when the bloody port gets installed with a funky name so that
it doesn't conflict with the bitrot freebsd has inflicted on me.
Not to mention that I need to groff on one machine out of 50. It's the
machine that I build freebsd releases on. The rest of the time, groff
doesn't need to exist.
I also resent that I've got several hundered K of perl interpreter laying
about on it's lazy bum because of about 8k of perl code that's in the system
that doesn't even exist under BSD and would be better off being rewritten
in C in the first place.
So, any way I shake it, I get screwed by having stuff in the base system.
If I run a devlopment machine, I've got old code getting in my way, if
it's the machine in the bathroom that runs the SNMP controlled bum-wiper,
I'm still stuck with perl and tcl and gcc and all this other crud, just
in case I feel like writing some code by waving the sponge back and forth.
FreeBSD could be so much more than it is today if we could get over the
idea that "unbundled" means "unfeatured." It's not like the days when
DEC decided to unbundle little things like the macro assembler, dreknet,
and the bliss compiler, so you'd have to go out and buy 5000 licenses
just to keep your campus running -- all the code is still there if you
want it, but if things are unbundled, you've got a choice.
Monolithic systems are Stalinist constructions... of course, having
just last week seen "Children of the Revolution", I now have a
deeper understanding of Australians, Joe.
Regards,
Paul
p.s. all of the insults are only meant in fun -- I'm just having too much
fun writing this to be polite :-)
p.p.s. for the peanut gallery, "Children of the Revolution" is a relatively
famous (and damn well done) commedy about a woman in the Austrialian
Communist party who meets the hero of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin.
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