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Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

cs.columbia.edu

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Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#61

Post by pjmlp »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #57
kccqzy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what majority of computer users (smartphones included) use though. As for developer-oriented CLI tools, I've also seen more and more GNU-isms and macOS-isms creeping in.

Counter example: Almost everyone uses the Apache webserver when they browse the web, but hardly anyone even knows what that is. We could easily compile a long list of similar crucial infrastructure software that virtually everyone is using and that doesn't have graphical user interfaces.

How much of Apache is pure POSIX and how much are #ifdef around OS specific APIs?

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#62

Post by pjmlp »

Gravityloss wrote: post #59
pjmlp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it? Sure it is down there on the OS tooling, but how many people outside UNIX devs, do actually bother using it? Personally it doesn't offer me any benefit over an higher level programming language REPL.

Interesting, I assume you do development? How do you handle scripting, moving files, grepping logs etc?

GUI tooling? Languages like Python?

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#63

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

pjmlp wrote: post #49
astrobe_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CLI and GUI have different grammars and capabilities. If you think that CLI means "prehistory" and GUI means "future", then ask yourself why CLI has "survived" GUI for at least 30 years.

Has it? Sure it is down there on the OS tooling, but how many people outside UNIX devs, do actually bother using it? Personally it doesn't offer me any benefit over an higher level programming language REPL.

At the end of the 80s and throughout the 90s, a common belief was that the CLI could be completely replaced by the GUI, one just hadn't yet figured out how. The GUI, however, never delivered those last 10-20% that you need in automation or in a context that requires reproducibility.

Windows NT was designed towards those promises, but eventually Microsoft realised their mistake and created - ten years ago - Powershell.

The entire dev world has been catching on to the fact that you get reproducible procedures when you use a CLI. Data scientists are another group who know how much power they get from a CLI.

Yet the myth of the obsolete CLI and the omnipotent GUI still is strong. Especially with those people who never really worked with a decent CLI.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#64

Post by gm-conspiracy »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #57
kccqzy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what majority of computer users (smartphones included) use though. As for developer-oriented CLI tools, I've also seen more and more GNU-isms and macOS-isms creeping in.

Counter example: Almost everyone uses the Apache webserver when they browse the web, but hardly anyone even knows what that is. We could easily compile a long list of similar crucial infrastructure software that virtually everyone is using and that doesn't have graphical user interfaces.

Almost everyone uses the Apache webserver when they browse the web

No.

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-surve...

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#65

Post by lomnakkus »

pjmlp wrote: post #49
astrobe_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CLI and GUI have different grammars and capabilities. If you think that CLI means "prehistory" and GUI means "future", then ask yourself why CLI has "survived" GUI for at least 30 years.

Has it? Sure it is down there on the OS tooling, but how many people outside UNIX devs, do actually bother using it? Personally it doesn't offer me any benefit over an higher level programming language REPL.

Yes, it has.

I mean there may not be as many users, but they are massively more powerful (in the realm of data processing only, alas) than people who don't know the CLI. It may be obvious to us, but I should perhaps also point out that CLI ~= REPL for the language that you're using (Bash or whatever).

Sure, these days CLI may mean "a Jupyter notebook", but the same principle applies.

It may not always look the same, but the point is that a CLI/REPL should be a combinatorial force multiplier. Otherwise, it's not really worthwhile.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#66

Post by tmalsburg2 »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #64
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter example: Almost everyone uses the Apache webserver when they browse the web, but hardly anyone even knows what that is. We could easily compile a long list of similar crucial infrastructure software that virtually everyone is using and that doesn't have graphical user interfaces.

Almost everyone uses the Apache webserver when they browse the web No. https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-surve...

Reading comprehension. I did not say that people only visit pages that are served by Apache. Even if Apache has just 20% market share there is a very high chance that you will hit some pages served by Apache. Plus, the same argument really applies to most alternatives to Apache.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#67

Post by netheril96 »

pjmlp wrote: post #44
cperciva wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at that list, I'm struck by the fact that it includes most of the applications users know they're using, but only a small minority of the processes running on an OS X system.

> only a small minority of the processes running on an OS X system. Which are anyway not POSIX. https://www.amazon.de/MAC-OS-Internals-Amit-Singh/dp/0321278...

POSIX is an application interface. How OS X is implemented under the hood is irrelevant. It does present an application interface mostly conformant to POSIX standards, so it is some way POSIX.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#68

Post by yamaneko »

kccqzy wrote: post #32
cperciva wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (and the authors of the article) seem to be assuming that "modern applications" are by definition applications with graphical user interfaces.

That's what majority of computer users (smartphones included) use though. As for developer-oriented CLI tools, I've also seen more and more GNU-isms and macOS-isms creeping in.

Just curious, can you give me some examples of GNU-isms/macOS-isms? I have a suspicion what they might be, but I'm not sure.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#69

Post by coldtea »

cperciva wrote: post #18

The original goal of the POSIX standard was application source code portability. However, modern applications are no longer being written to standardized POSIX interfaces. Speak for yourself.

>Speak for yourself.

Actually the inverse: don't speak for yourself, because it's irrelevant.

What the authors did was try to speak for what happens at large -- which is what matters. Outliers will always exist, but their team analyzed thousands of packages across three different OS environments to come to conclusions.

It's not about there being counter-examples, it's about what they saying being the norm.

Re: Posix Has Become Outdated (2016) [pdf]

#70

Post by notacoward »

They managed to write an entire article about POSIX and never mention the filesystem parts? Even the section about "asynchronous I/O" seems to have more to do with locking than actual I/O. Nothing about directory operations, permission models, consistency/durability requirements, and all the other things that make that part of POSIX the most egregiously out of date. I wrote a bit about this (http://pl.atyp.us/2016-05-updating-posix.html) and barely scratched the surface. I wish they'd dared to go there too.
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