[svlug] Writing start-up scripts...

[Rick Moen]

begin  Dagmar d'Surreal quotation:
 
> Ships with _what_... (rhetorical question)  

After Red Hat Software incorporated the TheNextLevel m4-based desktop
autoconfigurator (which won its X desktop softare contest), in, what, v.
5.0? , and then followed that up with AnotherLevel in more recent
versions, you may have noticed that it became really difficult to read
and comprehend one's X setup.  

Since they started doing that, I've had several Linux newcomers ask me
to explain to them how their new Red Hat desktop configurations worked,
found that I couldn't, and found that (relative) blessed simplicity
returns if you bypass those Red Hat-isms using a ~/.xinitrc file.

> The design goal is _portability_ regardless of platform.

I honestly can't see the gain in having network configuration files have
the exact same syntax between Solaris and Linux.  However, if I truly
_did_ need that, I might seek to write wrappers for Linux's ifconfig and
route functions that accepted Solaris syntax.

> I do not feel that a system administrator should have to be performing
> the role of a software developer (even though shell scripts don't
> require much "development" compared to other languages) when they're
> configuring a system, and why on earth would one want to go and edit a
> shell script and run the entire thing twice (or two different ones)
> when they can invoke just one script with a few simple and obvious
> arguments to administratively disable an interface or particular
> features of an interface on demand. 

I fail to see that editing a simple, self-documenting pair of ifconfig
and route statements is in any way comparable to being a "software
developer" -- nor that having to contend with a ridiculously baroque
set of sed and awk invocations to dereference some bizarre ASCII network
configuration files would be seen as an improvement in that area.

But, of course, if one's design aims don't include readability, perhaps
that's not a problem.

> Why bother?  I'd have to put them back in afterwards.

No, that's _not_ what I meant.  We appear to have miscommunicated.  By
"take them out", I meant disable them, programmatically.  And _then_
"ifconfig ethN down."  Much simpler.

> Not in this case.

Oh, foo.  Try to sell that to some credulous novice, because I'm not
buying.

> Damn, you _are_ incapable of rational debate.

One cannot help noticing that you conspicuously avoided answering the
question:  Are you insisting on taking a technical discussion personally
because you _created_ that pile of mush Red Hat ships in lieu of a
proper network init script?  (Not that that would be a good -- let alone 
rational -- reason, but a poor motive is better than none at all.)

-- 
Cheers,                                      Right to keep and bear
Rick Moen                                  Haiku shall not be abridged
rick at linuxmafia.com                           Or denied.  So there.