> (trimming the CC list...) Don't worry, I'm sure 99% of subscribers send my mail to /dev/null anyway.
> >> > Using netcat to reliably get data is never going to be appropriate > >> > for a production system, IMHO. > >> > >> Wow. You sure do set the bar low. Probably a lot of people are glad > >> that I don't accept that kind of balony. > > > > Then make the concept work. Oh, you can't, because it's broken by design. > > I don't think that was the point of the discussion. Now I almost regret > sending that email. I think you, and Theo, both mis-interpreted what I was trying to say. (So it's probably my fault for not expressing myself clearly). Whatever behavior you settle on for netcat, it will break somebody's script somewhere. That is the point I was trying to make. Yes, I do 'set the bar low', and I'm proud of that. I don't accept balony either. I think Theo is of the opinion that I was saying, "it's broken, don't fix it". I wasn't saying that at all, a good netcat implementation is obviously desirable. The networking concept of be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept applies here - we should aim for a perfect netcat implementation that can be used in all circumstances. That doesn't change the fact that the concept of using it in a script instead of writing some C code is wrong, and should be discouraged. > > Are you seriously suggesting that an enterprise WAN solution can be > > built on netcat? > > http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/rdr.html#tcpproxy Sick, you'll say. Not at all. > It > works more reliably than the last black-box proxy I had to deal with. If the example you've linked to is the limit of what you're trying to achieve, then fine, go ahead and do it with netcat. We certainly should have an implementation that's good enough to do *that*. > Guess which one was sold as "an enterprise (WAN) solution"? Let me just say, I really hate those sorts of phrases, I don't know why I used it, (something to do with it being 1 AM and being tired). As for black-box solutions, you really don't 'know' me, do you? If it doesn't come with source, it doesn't come anywhere near me. No closed source system is an "enterprise (WAN) solution", by definition. I basically have fears that this discussion is going to lead to people trying to write something like an IMAP client using a shell script and netcat. It would never work 100%, and us expending effort to make it work 99% of the time just hurts the users who are stuck with the 1% of failiures. -- Creamy
