> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 04 April 2007 16:53 > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org > Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Why are gentoo people so in love with > colorizedoutput?!? > > > > (a) The unix standard for ages has been simple plain text output. > Gentoo breaks that standard with a color default. Gentoo has broken > the standard; gentoo ought to honor the standard.
I believe a Dr Tannenbaum (?) once said "The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from". Do we want a UNIX standard? A linux standard? A Gentoo standard? A lowest common denominator standard? A "what most people prefer" standard? Personally colours don't bother me - they look fine on my 17in laptop screen with black terminal background. But thats purely my opinion. Many will share yours and many will share mine. > > (b) Switching color off is easier than you might imagine, since all of > the following DO NOT WORK: > > TERM=vt100 > |less > NOCOLOR=true > --nocolor > --color=n > editing /usr/bin/emerge to always set havecolor = 0 > I do however agree that a reliable and useful way to turn colours off should be available for those that choose no coloured output. Gentoo, for me, is about choice. > I will explain why I consider gentoo to be run by amateurs, and I > don't mean in the old sense of unpaid vs professionals, I mean in the > shoddy sense of "try again in the next release" trial and > error coding I > have seen. > =snip= > Several other now-forgotten similar breakages which rendered my system > unbootable. Gentoo is the absolute first Unix system I have used in > 25 years which I have been leery of rebooting for wondering if I will > have to break out the rescue disk yet again. If your systems are mission critical then don't upgrade a package unless you need to. In the past 8 months I've had Gentoo on my laptop and maybe once I have had to do some fixing. I can't recall now. I use an ~x86 unmasked system btw. If you are doing `emerge -uD world` or something without checking what it's going to update then that's just plain idiocy. If you want to be more cautious then be more careful about what you upgrade. Also, see earlier "file bug reports" comments as you might, in doing so, save someone else from the same mistake... > > As for colorization, my recollection is that it first appeared as hard > coded escape sequences in every single message in /usr/bin/emerge. > This was such atriociously bad coding that I just edited it out, > figuring that a bug report would be lost on such feeble minds. > Insults rarely get you anywhere. Constructive feedback and discussion are generally better options FYI. > It then moved to actual variable assignments with the appropriate > names, still hard coded. What the heck is termcap / terminfo for if > worked around like that? Once more I shook my head and edited it out > rather than waste time educating supposedly intelligent developers on > the horrors of hard coded magic values. For some reason, hard coded > magic numbers seem to be a favorite of newbies, and I have long since > learned that those developers who like hard coded magic numbers seem > to be particularly dead set against having anyone tell them why that > is bad practice. Yet still you haven't filed a bug report? For the love of <insert choice of deity here> either file a bug and see what they say (or better yet submit a patch to fix the issue you are experiencing) or if you really think you can make a contribution why not get onto the dev team? > > Along the way, various color controls appeared, none of them working > particularly well. I have listed them above. None of them work. > Apparently the Gentoo standard is to add features without testing > them. Somewhere along the way, "--nocolor" became unfashionable and > was replaced by "--color=n", but "--nospinner" is still favored, > possibly because the fad police haven't discovered it yet and replaced > it by "--spinner=n". Or maybe they have become bored with fussing > with managing options and have moved on to some trendier busy work. > > I use gentoo because portage *mostly* works, the ebuild packages > *mostly* work, I have an amd64 system and slackware has no 64 bit > version (I am aware of the unofficial one), I can't stand RedHat and > the other big corporate systems, and Debian leaves me cold with its > political bickering. I do NOT advise friends to use gentoo, and I > would be amazed if any business tried to use it for production. > Instead of bitching, pissing and moaning why don't you do as has been suggested. Your general rant is not constructive at all. Either do something about it (file a bug or get involved with the coding) or shut up and make do. Being a non-dev myself and not programming-inclined I use Gentoo because it best fits my needs. I don't see a need to bitch about it all the time - if I have a problem with a package I'll file a bug and pass it onto a dev rather than get in a hissy fit on a mailing list. Sorry if this email comes across as overly harsh but I don't see what you are trying to achieve by ranting without actually doing anything constructive. You might as well go and beat your head off a brick wall for all the good it will do. David "it's past 5pm and I want to go home" Nelson -- djn I do not represent anyone else in emails I send to this list. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
