Re: How to get started in guile & programming generally

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

address@hidden writes:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 11:42:51PM +0200, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>> Joshua Branson <address@hidden> writes:
>> > It gets really interesting when you start telling these processes to
>> > transform the underlying data.  They currently have a translator that
>> > translates an xml file into a directory tree.  Imagine searching an html
>> > file with the "find" tool.  Wouldn't that be something different?
>>
>> Or imagine installing a packages from remote servers with shell globbing:
>>
>> pkg --install /http://ftp.gnu.org/packages/*/*.deb
>>
>> Last time I used the Hurd, some variant of this actually worked.
>
>   - Selecting packages by name via some string matching may have
>     ummm... strange consequences ;-D

This as statement on its own is true, but does not invalidate the
usecase: When something is not in a package repository, I typically need
to first locate, then download and verify, and then install the
package. With a transparent http translator, the locate and download
step are no longer needed, and verification can be done transparently
(since the signature is *next to* the file to install).

There are a lot of things which would get much easier this way. They
would not become magic, but many unnecessary complications would
disappear. The equivalent of ceremony in code, but on the sysadmin
level.

And it would simplify the code: Why does mplayer/mpv need a mode to play
from a URL? If we could simply play from a server via the filesystem,
the tools we use could be simplified a lot.

Best wishes,
Arne
--
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken

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