Re: [dev] Is there a reason to use install(1)?

[2010-05-30 00:29] Moritz Wilhelmy <crap_AT_wzff.de>
> > You mean, install is just meant as a wrapper around the standard
> > tools
> > to express the actions in a more compact way. (btw: It's a shame that
> > install isn't a shell script then.)
>
> Well. why isn't man(1) a shell-script?

It used to be. (And it should still be.)

> And what about the dozens of other
> tools which could be trivially implemented in sh?

They aren't implemented in sh because many people care about other
things. Gancarz probably should have wrote his book earlier. He
includes an excellent chapter on writing as much as possible in sh.

But, how did you feel when you, for the first time, heard Gancarz
advising you to do so? Haven't you wanted to argue on this case first?

> some loop over the directories in $MANPATH to look for the manpage,
> nroff -man $f | $PAGER
>
> Even the BSDs have man as a binary program.

BSDs tend to optimize for performance. Maybe they even were the first
to introduce man as a binary program, but this is just a guess.

meillo
Received on Sun May 30 2010 - 07:40:18 UTC