We have embedded systems that don't have room for bash. I don't think bash provides that much useful stuff in its extensions that warrant locking ourselves to it.
But then, the whole trend away from portable coding doesn't sit well with me... Portable !== Linux-du-jour! -- Jim -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peter Tyser Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 12:03 PM To: Denys Vlasenko Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PATCH] gen_build_files.sh: Remove bashisms > > I also echo your opinions about keeping the scripts portable. > > I can sympathise with this point of view. > > However, I can see another point of view: > > Why, after years and years of happily using bash, everybody should be > tortured now by being forced to work in a shell which: > > * does not have a single source release linked to its homepage > (http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/dash/) > * does not support many (any?) bash extensions, even simple ones > * does not have a testsuite > > Why? > > Who are those people and why I am forced to use their shell now? > > Why am I a hostage now to their whim on when, and *whether*, > they will agree to fix bug foo or implement feature baz? > bash didn't have bug foo and had feature baz, and I was happy. > Now I'm not. I definitely see your points. But I don't think this discussion should be centered on dash. To me its a debate about using portable POSIX compliant shell scripting vs using bash-specific shell scripting. If we use POSIX compliant code, dash, as well as most other shells should work without issue. If we use bash-specific shell scripting bash will work, and others *may* work. The 2 acceptable solutions to me would be (in order of preference): 1. Use POSIX compliant shell scripting, and using /bin/sh as the interpreter. 2. Use bash shell scripting, and use /bin/bash as the interpreter. Right now, we're using bash scripting, but using /bin/sh as the interpreter. This is what I think is broke. If we use /bin/sh as the interpreter, we shouldn't be using bashisms. If we use /bin/bash as the interpreter, than we're free to use bashisms as we please. So in any case, in my mind it comes down to using option #1 or #2 above - and I do see both sides of that argument. Either #1 or #2 would be an improvement in my opinion. Best, Peter _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
