Re: [dwm] problem with dmenu3.1

From: Anselm R. Garbe <arg_AT_suckless.org>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 21:58:42 +0200

On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 09:28:47PM +0200, Marek Bernat wrote:
> On 5/23/07, Sander van Dijk <a.h.vandijk_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >That's how it used to be, and I do believe that represents the
> >original UNIX spirit (do one thing, and do that right) much better
> >than the way it is in UNIX-like systems today. To me, conceptual
> >simplicity is much more important than performance gains through what
> >I percieve to be "speedhacks".
> >
> >
> Testing inside the language isn't a speed hack.
> How many languages have you seen that would call external program to test
> logic? None. Because it's stupid.

No it's not stupid, because this way as external program, you
can use many other logical/arithmetic external tools for
checking a condition. Actually, the argument to if or elif is a
condition and not an expression, and a condition is wether true
or false. It has been wise by the UNIX inventors to not include
test into the shell.

test has only been added as builtin to certain shells (similiar
to echo and kill), because of performance issues.

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe >< http://www.suckless.org/ >< GPG key: 0D73F361
Received on Wed May 23 2007 - 21:58:42 UTC

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Sun Jul 13 2008 - 14:42:36 UTC