Re: Suggested dual human/binary interface for proc/devfs

From: Richard Gooch (rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca)
Date: Thu Apr 06 2000 - 04:02:06 EST


Alexander Viro writes:
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Apr 2000, Richard Gooch wrote:
>
> > Alexander Viro writes:
> > > "ASCII is tough" -- Programmer Barbie
> >
> > Al, this is simply rude. You are deinigrating people who disagree with
> > you. If you don't agree with someone: fine. Feel free to argue the
> > technical issues.
>
> Richard, I'm bloody sick and tired of the ugliness that went into
> UNIX from each and every Missed'em'V in existance. Of unneeded
> interfaces. Of unneeded namespaces (e.g. the whole SysV IPC - _why_
> not a filesystem?) Of crap like AIX with its love to binary config
> files. Of braindead syscalls (sysfs(2) - look and enjoy) that are
> there because it's easier to add a syscall than to talk a dozen of
> primadonnas into <gasp> reading from unformatted text file. It's
> time to stop this idiocy. Please, before we continue that into a
> flamewar, search on DN for "UNIX philosophy", OK?

Al, you seem to be ignorant of a fundamental point. Even if you are
technically correct on some issue (a point I'm neither conceding nor
denying here), you shouldn't be rude. It's a sign of immaturity.

I watched you for years on linux-kernel, ranting and raving, cursing
and cussing, flaming and insulting. Most aggressive young males go
through a phase like this, but they eventually get over it, and learn
to behave like adults. You've had your fun, now be polite.

There never is, and never will be, any justification for being rude
and/or insulting. All it can ever do is reduce your credibility. You
can shout all you like about how right you are about some technical
detail, but it doesn't change a thing. Bear in mind also that if you
behave like this in person, you're likely to get a punch in the nose.
It's much easier to "get away" with being rude on the 'net.

BTW: the general point of separate namespaces I agree with you. We
have too many. The shmfs idea is good (just a flawed implementation,
and pretty risky just before 2.4). If you check the archives, you'll
note that I've also suggested that the separate namespace for network
interface could be folded into the FS namespace as well.

But issues of all-ASCII interfaces aren't so clear-cut, especially if
we don't have a good API. Which we don't. Denying it won't change the
reality. What we have now is fragile and bloated. Instead of denying
there is a problem (just because you hate binary interfaces), face up
to the problem and help solve it. The demand for binary interfaces
won't go away until there is a good solution for ASCII interfaces.
People who claim the ASCII interfaces are hard, fragile and bloated
are not stupid.

                                Regards,

                                        Richard....
Permanent: rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
Current: rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca

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