Re: [dev] sbase

Hey,

On 23 May 2011 04:36, Noah Birnel <nbirnel_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> Your Makefile, though, is GNU-dependant.

Really, which part? It seems to work with NetBSD make.

On 23 May 2011 09:16, Mate Nagy <mnagy_AT_port70.net> wrote:
> please, please don't take this as a troll - it's just a personal
> feeling... but I do feel that the suckless project is at its best when
> it produces fantastically useful minimalistic software like dwm.
>
> These days it seems a moronic, unproductive crusade on features and
> rewriting completely serviceable utilities to be much worse is more popular.

I completely understand the sentiment. Just the other day on #suckless
I was saying, the reason why dwm and dmenu are so good is they bring
something new in terms of usability. Things like surf do not, they
just have fewer features.

So where does this fit in? Okay, this is basically my computing
tactic: simplifying my operating system to the point where I can
actually understand what on Earth is going on. When I use a system
like Ubuntu and Gnome, when shit breaks I have no idea what went
wrong, and I tend to end up reinstalling everything. When I use a
system like Debian and dwm, when shit breaks I say, "ohhh," and fix
it, and it takes a couple of seconds. (X is an exception.) The simpler
the internals, the easier it is to use, not because of anything on the
surface -- though the manuals are rather easier to read -- but because
you can clearly visualise the mechanisms inside whatever tools you are
using.

So I hope that explains my view on the subject. I agree that dwm and
friends are "suckless at its best", but this sort of paring is
necessary to build on my relationship with my computer as a whole: I
don't understand how it all works, so instead of spending the next
decade creating a mental image of the system, I'll just make my own,
thus bringing its complexity within the boundaries of my own ken. (Is
that a pun? I don't know.) I don't know how others live with the
complexity of their system, but I suspect it involves Perl and
duct-tape. :p

On 23 May 2011 09:42, Szabolcs Nagy <nsz_AT_port70.net> wrote:
> scripts will break

Yeah, when I started out I wanted to make it entirely POSIX, but once
I saw the flaggishness of the POSIX standard I decided I'd just make a
compromise. This will begin as a supplement to, rather than a
replacement for, standard utilities, and maybe we can get to a point
where a static distro like Stali can use only them. I don't know about
you, but I could genuinely live without autoconf on my laptop.

Thanks,
cls
Received on Mon May 23 2011 - 12:05:55 CEST