From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,e219d94b946dfc26 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit From: Brian May Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada.Command_Line and wildcards References: <45dcaed8_6@news.bluewin.ch> <1172132169.423514.271890@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com> <545bgvF1ttrphU1@mid.individual.net> <1495406.QZvfpqijrQ@linux1.krischik.com> <6dy7mn3hhu.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> <1172328891.5496.62.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1173096982.3712.37.camel@localhost> Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:07:52 +1100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) XEmacs/21.4.19 (linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:psYeRFXmdrfjmABSwRfpMcl/r8k= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: snoopy.microcomaustralia.com.au X-Trace: quokka.wn.com.au 1173150451 202.173.153.89 (6 Mar 2007 12:07:31 +0800) X-Complaints-To: abuse@westnet.com.au Path: g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!quokka.wn.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:9698 Date: 2007-03-06T14:07:52+11:00 List-Id: >>>>> "Georg" == Georg Bauhaus writes: Georg> Suppose you want to port some piece of Unix software to Georg> some other system, a text processing tool, say. The C Georg> source is in fact perfectly portable ANSI C. But it can be Georg> real hard to get the C source through the configure stage Georg> only because configuration _depends_ on original style Unix Georg> shells and the Unix process model (e.g. piped processes Georg> "within" a backtick (yes, I know $(), not the point), Georg> result to be assigned to some variable. The GNU "standard" Georg> config.guess is such a thing.) The topic seems to have changed to standards. There are POSIX standards, that define standard features required by shells. The only problem is that the POSIX standard can be a bit restrictive at times. As a result, shells like bash define extensions to the base standard. However, Debian has a policy that any script that requires non-POSIX shell features but declare itself to use /bin/bash instead of /bin/sh. It still is a problem though, but at least it is getting addressed by some vendors. Then we get to the topic of autoconf/automake - I think I am not alone on this newsgroup when I think they are ugly.... Again, the reason they are ugly is due to a lack of standards - the requirement is to be able to compile an application on different platforms that can be very different. Georg> Yes, certainly. Now for contrast, if I log into a system Georg> where I participate in a *shared* account and where system Georg> defaults *must* not be changed, and find a huge list of Georg> predefined aliases. I wasn't amused once when I found out Georg> that "unzip" was an alias, setting a number of options. And Georg> yes, I know how to disable aliases. Having to debug shell Georg> setups isn't an argument in favor of typical Unix Georg> environments in my book, in particular if these are Georg> "immutable" system settings. But these seem to be the new Georg> Unix hackers' favorites. This is a problem for any shared accounts, on any system, where it is possible to adjust preferences. Different people will have different preferences. -- Brian May