Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 15:09:53 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 15:09:43 -0500 Received: from unthought.net ([212.97.129.24]:63448 "HELO mail.unthought.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 15:09:38 -0500 Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 21:09:36 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jakob_=D8stergaard?= To: Alexander Viro Cc: John Levon , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Daniel Phillips , Tim Jansen Subject: Re: PROPOSAL: dot-proc interface [was: /proc stuff] Message-ID: <20011104210936.T14001@unthought.net> Mail-Followup-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jakob_=D8stergaard?= , Alexander Viro , John Levon , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Daniel Phillips , Tim Jansen In-Reply-To: <20011104205030.P14001@unthought.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: ; from viro@math.psu.edu on Sun, Nov 04, 2001 at 03:01:12PM -0500 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sun, Nov 04, 2001 at 03:01:12PM -0500, Alexander Viro wrote: > > > On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, [iso-8859-1] Jakob %stergaard wrote: > > > Strong type information (in one form or the other) is absolutely fundamental > > for achieving correctness in this kind of software. > > Like, say it, all shell programming? Or the whole idea of "file as stream of > characters"? Or pipes, for that matter... > Shell programming is great for small programs. You don't need type information in the language when you can fit it all in your head. Now, go write 100K lines of shell, something that does something that is not just shoveling lines from one app into a grep and into another app. Let's say, a database. Go implement the next Oracle replacement in bash, and tell me you don't care about types in your language. Why do we have "file formats", well that is because files are just streams of characters, and we need more structure than just that. This is exactly what I'm proposing - having "just" files in proc is fine, but not knowing the type of the information they present is catastrophic. -- ................................................................ : jakob@unthought.net : And I see the elder races, : :.........................: putrid forms of man : : Jakob ?stergaard : See him rise and claim the earth, : : OZ9ABN : his downfall is at hand. : :.........................:............{Konkhra}...............: - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/