Re: Admin tools - idea from left field
On Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 03:11:11PM -0800, Chris Waters wrote:
> Amos Shapira wrote:
> > True (about "Don't go down that road"). But is procedural programming
> > THAT crucial?
> If you want something that can (in theory) be used for *all*
> configuration, then yes, procedural programming *is* that crucial.
> 90% or even 99% is NOT good enough.
Right - I don't want to end up with something that requires extensive
modification of existing programs. I see it as something that
(hopefully) requires hacking a few well grouped source files. As I
can see a lot of people being wary of this, it would be really good to
have something that looks good to show authors.
> The FSF was, last I heard, planning to use Guile in this role.
> Guile may not be ready for the job *yet*, but unlike XML or tcl, it
> should be powerful and flexible enough. There was a long discussion
> on the GNU mailing lists about Guile vs. tcl, so lets not rehash
> that here.
Tcl probably isn't quite up to snuff as far as a language goes. I
think Python is, and, at this point, is the one I would probably pick.
This is a pity, as Tcl's C API is really nice.
> The FSF considered tcl and rejected it, and they're doing a lot more
> software *development* than we are. They have a lot more influence
> over the direction of free software than we do. If we start trying
> to promote XML or tcl instead of Guile as a "universal configuration
> language", we're going to be competing directly with the FSF's
> efforts, which doesn't strike me as wise. Nor productive.
What efforts? Guile isn't used in anything besides a few things like
Gnu robots right now. No, he who writes working code sets the
standards (for instance, the CVSup program used so much by FreeBSD is
written in Modula-3 - presumably because the author likes it, and no
one has bothered to rewrite it in a more common language). Even the
Gimp, which uses scheme as a scripting language, does not use Guile.
> If there are problems with the way Guile works *now*, the
> appropriate thing to do is take it up with the FSF. Maybe they'll
> fix it, maybe they'll be persuaded to consider something else. But
> ignoring them and starting from scratch strikes me as a bad
> approach. We should collaborate with them.
Sure, I think some of the issues with Guile have been mentioned and
are being resolved.
If the FSF is interested in doing something along these lines, then
yes, of course we should try and cooperate, but so far, afaict, all
they have been doing is developing their own extending/embeding
language. I haven't really seen anything (although I haven't looked)
about hacking existing programs to use Guile.. Quite possibly because
this would be a *huge* and, if it didn't catch on, untenable project.
Ciao,
--
David Welton http://www.efn.org/~davidw
Debian GNU/Linux - www.debian.org
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