On Sun, 17 Jun 2001, Alexander Skwar wrote:
>> In addition: you are right, There are millions of UNIX systems without
>> 'less' installed.
>
>How many linux installation are out there? And how many UNIX installations?
>I *SUSPECT* linux > Unix, so your comment isn't right. Do you have numbers
>to prove me wrong?
Personally, the number in use of each type of operating system
out there doesn't matter much in terms of portability.
Popularity != portability
Something is either portable or it isn't. When trying to be
portable, one should choose programs ran from shellscripts with
care so that they run on as many OS's out there as possible.
If one wants to use snazzy modern features, that is ok, but it
should be done in a way that falls back to portable methods.
It all depends on if one's goal is to write software that runs on
the most computers out there, or the most operating systems out
there. The former is a subset of the latter however.
The unfortunate part of portable shell scripting is that it is
very limiting, much more time consuming, and can get very ugly
very quickly. Also, many scripts that go for portability above
all else often do so at the expense of security.
Sometimes I would rather rewrite something in C than mess around
trying to be portable in shell scripts. Or skip that and do
it in python or perl. ;oP
Look at many of the shell scripts that come with XFree86 for
examples of portable scripts. Many are not secure however, and
are quite messy, but they are quite portable IIUC.
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