(17-03-2019, 07:53 PM)Igrom Wrote: Online handles are, from my experience, for life*. Regrettably, mine was chosen before embarking on my computer adventures, and so it begins with a capital letter. I half expect to stick out like a sore thumb here.

I don't know, I've changed mine over the years a few times... But this-or-that-way welcome!

(18-03-2019, 01:04 PM)jkl Wrote: My favorite comparison is the true command: It had a size of 0 bytes on UNIX (it basically spawned a shell and returned a success doing so), it has 80 lines in today's GNU system and even includes the false command. And a --version parameter (if "true" ever will be changed to "quux" or something?). And a --help parameter (if you don't know how to use true ... sane operating systems have manpages for that, just saying).

Then again, do you really want to spawn a shell and everything it brings with it just to write 0 to a specific place in memory? Try it yourself, if you want to: amusing ./true is an empty file, how much longer does need than ? On my system GNU's version is ~600 times faster? And considering that true is used a lot if shell scripts, I really can't complain.

Also, looking at false you see that the code has been written to be reused.

Regarding at the 80 lines accusation, one just has to accept that the GNU project values consistency (all coreutilities accept a minimum of flags) over strict minimalism. I respect and prefer that. If the GNU version was actually hard to read or understand, I'd maybe say something else, but I don't think that's the case. And if it still annoys you, just place some other version in your path before GNU's.

(18-03-2019, 01:04 PM)jkl Wrote: A computer is a tool. I haven't really studied the source code of any of my daily applications in years - because why would I want to?

Besides there being a lot to learn, it's not only study, but the ability to actively engage yourself (for personal as well as social sake) and improve or specialise existing tools. That's the funny thing with computers after all, they're "tools" with "tools". Being able to choose one requires the same freedom in the other.

I also wasn't convinced of this until I started spending time with Emacs, and experiencing first hand what software freedom can mean, under the right circumstances.