On 13 Nov 1997, James Troup wrote: > Scott Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Nice post, but very little in the way of rational arguments why bash > > should be essential when it doesn't have to be. > > Cheap shot, not well made. The point is, bash is already essential, > that is Debian policy. The onus is on *you* to demonstrate why that > should be changed.
"Because it is that way now" is NOT necessarily a valid argument for keeping things the same way. Slavery used to be common, East Germany used to exist. That is not a valid arguement for the continuance of East Germany and slavery. > > It's not like there is significatly more power there than in a > > normal /bin/sh. > > What, pray tell, is a ``normal /bin/sh''? Maybe ksh, maybe ash. Could someone come up with a rational list of the POSIX deficiencies in either? > > While I can't personally see myself living without bash, and since > > it compiles almost anywhere I don't see myself not having it, I > > don't see the point in needlessly forcing others to use it. > > You aren't forcing them to use it; we are forcing them to have it > installed, there is a difference. We have to have a POSIX shell which > is essential (or are you going to dispute that?), why should it not be > bash? If it isn't bash, what do you suggest in it's place? The point is that people are trying to build a system where bash isn't needed and there isn't a specfic reason we should force them to use it. Again, "we've always done it that way" is not an acceptable arguement. > > The below lines are the Installed-Size values from the copys of the > > shells on my drive. People installing in cramped spaces could > > benifit from working with something a tad less bloated (not to > > mention the speed benifit from a smaller, less complex shell). > > So what are you going to do? Ban people from using ``bash-ism's'' in > debian/*? Unless you do so, even if bash isn't essential, people are > still going to use ``bash-ism's'' in their scripts and so bash will > still need to be installed. What exactly have you won? Maybe make a stronger suggestion to that effect. Even if they don't clean up their rules files, if the installed package doesn't need bash, we've won something here. -- Scott K. Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.gate.net/~storm/
