[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to")
From: |
tomas |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to") |
Date: |
Thu, 1 Jul 2004 11:27:10 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.3i |
On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 04:49:19PM -0700, Pierce T.Wetter III wrote:
[...]
> Let's say I want to add a submit rule.
>
> "Builds correctly" or "if make"
>
> That seems like a logical use for a shell script, because all I really
> want
> to do is run make and get the result.
>
> So I suppose that there are two ways to go here. In one case, the
> config file for
> submit rules could be a complete language like Python (I'm using Python
> since I don't know furth):
[Python example]
> So tla would look for "Rules.py", and it would look for definitions of
> specific Python routines (like submit) which it would call in certain
> cases.
>
> Now this would force tla users to learn Python, which besides causing a
> flamefest, would require only using tla where python is available. On
> the other hand, I see several benefits:
>
> 1. Since Rules.py is only read once per tla command, and probably only
> compiled once in a great while when Rules.py changes, this would make
> tla pretty fast at reading and processing the rules.
>
> 2. Personally, I hate shell scripting, and much prefer doing things in
> Perl or Python then I do
> .sh files. Plus as Tom points out, all config files are a language of
> some sort, and I'd rather not learn yet another one.
>
> 3. tla could set certain variables and read others, making it easy to
> pass information back and forth between the rule code and the main
> code.
>
> Or, there's this alternative. Tla will execute any file named
> .rules.submit. So this file could
> look like this:
>
> #!/usr/bin/python
[...]
> The advantages of this are:
>
> 1. User can use anything: Perl, Python, Shell scripts, c programs.
> 2. Tla has to launch a whole process to ask one question, which while
> easy for a global operation like submit, its bad for any per file
> thing.
And since many people would contribute scripts the user would end
up depending on Python 2.1 *and* Python 2.3 *and* Perl 5.6 *and*
(oh, well).
> The third alternative would be of course:
>
> arch implements some ad-hoc configuration language, which has
> whatever
> features the arch users felt we're needed, and which gradually gets
> hacked
> on, but is actually harder to learn then Perl/Python etc.
>
> So that's where you're coming from, except you came with with a fourth
> alternative:
>
> Given Tom's experience with creating a language, Tom creates his own
> VM, with the theory being that people can write code in multiple
> languages
> which compile down to this code. Tom will probably write a scheme
> compiler
> for instance. (See Emacs/Lisp/Richard Stallman)
>
> So I think that's where you're coming from. My feedback as a user is
> that:
>
> 1. I don't want to learn a new language.
> 2. I don't want to learn a new config file format either.
>
> But of the two, I would rather choose #2 then #1.
I think there won't be any difference between #1 an #2.
At least not if you squint a bit ;-)
[...]
> So I don't disagree entirely with your decision to integrate a
> language into tla,
> I disagree with your decision to invent a new one, or even a new VM. It
> would be much
> better if you integrated a language that there was an O'Reilly book
> available for, or
OK, so let's write one ;-)
> >You seem to think I'm going to stop everything and immediately
> >completely rewrite arch in some strange language that I made
> >up on the spot. That's not the plan. Reacting against that
> >non-plan is really off topic.
>
> No, I think that you like working on languages so you're thinking of
> creating one for use in arch rule files. I don't disagree with having
> a language in rule files, I disagree with having a language you made
> up in the rule files...
>
> So while many people's first reaction to all this was, "why a
> language?",
> my reaction is "why YOUR language?".
It'll be the right one, I'm sure.
Regards
-- tomás
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Zenaan Harkness, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Tom Lord, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Tom Lord, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Tom Lord, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), tomas, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"),
tomas <=
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Jan Hudec, 2004/07/01
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Tobias C. Rittweiler, 2004/07/01
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Tom Lord, 2004/07/01
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to"), Scott Parish, 2004/07/01