[Toybox] I hate the GNU design aesthetic.

[mtsl8]

On 2022-09-30 11:10, enh via Toybox wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 1:35 AM Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> wrote:
>> On 9/28/22 10:41, enh wrote:
>>> On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 11:32 PM Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> wrote:

>>> luckily i doubt we'll ever have to answer those
>>> questions, because i doubt anything esoteric is likely to be used.
>> 
>> Famous. Last. Words.
> 
> well, "you're doing this to yourself". GNU tar doesn't support any of
> this, busybox tar even less. so it's only toybox tar where someone
> _could_ get themselves into a mess with this in the first place. (and
> tbh, i still haven't seen an actual motivation beyond "orthogonality".
> which is a fine goal all other things being equal, but "massive added
> complexity", "ability to construct tar commands that no-one can read
> [because hardly anyone knows sed beyond s/// any more]",
> "interoperability issues with gnu/busybox", and "possible unintended
> consequences" all sound like reasons to believe all other things are
> _not_ equal here :-) )

>> Implementing behavior is easy. Figuring out what the behavior should
>> BE is hard.

> tbh, this is where i like the (usual) rob landley toybox philosophy of
> "i'll implement it when we have a motivating example of someone trying
> to get something done with it, not just because it's mentioned in the
> docs". i think that's a great pragmatic philosophy (in a world
> dominated by dogmatic philosophies, to which group "orthogonality" --
> for all its merits at times -- tends to belong). it also has the nice
> side-effect of letting reality guide where to spend your time, because
> it means you're focusing on things that users demonstrably need rather
> than stuff that someone might want someday.
> 

Sometimes it is important to think about the longer term future. One 
reason
it can be difficult to do that is because often the previous people did 
not.
Is it not valuable to reconsider the way in which things are done,
     when the observation is that the old way is inconsistent, insecure,
     or inefficient? or simply because perhaps a better way can be found?

Dismissing value simply because it is not immediately tangible
     is a very short term philosophy.

Different people have different priorities and goals.

I for one appreciate observing the deep dive, because it gives me
     intellectual access to something that's out of my current depth,
     and gives me a much better idea of how I might use these constructs
     in efficient ways to design new systems.

Just to be clear I do not disagree that practicality drives the bus, but 
I am
     also all for taking some extra time along the way if it means saving
     time/energy later, and especially if that particular segment can 
then be
     laid to rest for longer. (Not to mention the cognitive/functional 
overhead
     of development setup and teardown ~ files, tabs, trains of 
thought...)

Also makes it easier to understand retroactively when the history is
     contiguous(-adjacent), when learning or refreshing one's memory of 
something.

> with this tar sed stuff i feel like i'm watching a man drill holes in
> his own head, all the time crying that it hurts :-)
> 
> (though you are, i think, collecting a hell of a lot of circumstantial
> evidence that the original implementors didn't think this through. but
> to me that says "so neither should you" --- just do the minimum,
> assume the weird shit is as useless as it appears, move on with your
> life until/unless someone comes along who actually does need more. a
> motivating example often makes things clearer. the lack of one is
> often a sign you were right to ignore the whole mess :-) )
> 

One consequence of this as a general strategy is it can put you on the 
defensive.
Not there's anything inherently wrong with that, but how well does it 
scale?

Getting in "good" habits tends to fortify responses to "real" problems;
not that there's any end to that process, but still worth considering.

Socially defining "good" can be a very challenging thing to do well.

> 
> /me wonders how much of this gnu behavior is even deliberate versus
> accidental, and thus likely to be the kind of test that suffers from
> debian version skew if/when anyone actually tries to use the gnu
> version.
> 

Is there any evidence of them doing that sort of thing?

~~

Just a couple pennies from an "outside" perspective, take em or leave 
em..

- mtsl8

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