>But why isn't the source for mk (3929 lines w/ headers, okay 4661 with mkfile >and acid) >at least as long as all that Java in the ant distribution (213151 lines)? >That's a lot of catching up to do. >The market has clearly spoken, and it appears that more lines dominates the >soup.
one interesting thing about that example is that if it were done again for the Plan 9 environment, mk might well be even smaller, since some of the existing functionality isn't really used, or might be achieved by simpler mechanisms, or with functionality added instead by further composition with other programs; alternatively, it might be redone in a radically different way. either way you probably wouldn't get an entire O'Reilly book out of it though.
