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The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

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Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#441

Post by eigengrau »

pcwalton wrote: post #335
hzhou321 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demanding the support of spaces in filenames significantly complicates code as simple space delimination no longer works and other delimination schemes are much more error prone -- forgetting balancing quotes, any one? While you are allowing spaces, you probabaly are allowing all possible code points or maybe even a null byte? Thinking about it gives me headaches. I hate hearing people using 21st century or modern as…

The fact that Unix tools have trouble with spaces in filenames is absolutely a problem with Unix. If the Unix ecosystem had better support for this, then it wouldn't be a problem.

I don’t quite see how Unix tools have trouble with spaces in filenames. Could you detail some cases where the space handling is not due to the shell, as opposed to the program being invoked?

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#442

Post by eigengrau »

v_lisivka wrote: post #436
pcwalton wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Unix tools have trouble with spaces in filenames is absolutely a problem with Unix. If the Unix ecosystem had better support for this, then it wouldn't be a problem.

Unix tools have no trouble with space in file names. "-", "\0", "\n" and bad Unicode are troublesome. Lazy programmers can forget to put quotes around variables in shell scripts, but it's not a problem of the tool.

Additionally, not every shell expands variables the way Bourne-based shells do.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#443

Post by grive »

com2kid wrote: post #362
ratboy666 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... no it doesn't. It takes each space delimited name as a new name. You will need to add "" and quote the names -- but Windows shell only has one level of quoting, (") which means you can't easily type the command you need. Unix shell is a bit better. Unix only appears worse because people do attempt scripting. Directory of C:\Users\fred 12/14/2017 04:44 PM 1,556 new 2.txt 1 File(s) 1,556 bytes 0 Dir(s) 75,989,876…

> Um... no it doesn't. It takes each space delimited name as a new name. You will need to add "" and quote the names -- but Windows shell only has one level of quoting, (") which means you can't easily type the command you need. Unix shell is a bit better. Unix only appears worse because people do attempt scripting. Ah I see, you have a file "new 2.txt", I was a bit confused. Not sure what you mean by only 1 level of…

> Ah I see, you have a file "new 2.txt", I was a bit confused.

This is highly ironical, given this thread.

Some people seems to advocate for programs to be better than humans at globbing filenames.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#444

Post by Daycrawler »

hzhou321 wrote: post #198
neonscribe wrote: post #178

I used make heavily in the 80s and 90s, but haven't much since then. Recently I started a project that had source files getting processed into PDF files, for use by humans. Since this is the 21st century, those files have spaces in their names. At a certain point, I realized that I should be managing this processing somehow, so I thought of using a simple Makefile. A little searching reveals that the consensus on usi…

Demanding the support of spaces in filenames significantly complicates code as simple space delimination no longer works and other delimination schemes are much more error prone -- forgetting balancing quotes, any one? While you are allowing spaces, you probabaly are allowing all possible code points or maybe even a null byte? Thinking about it gives me headaches. I hate hearing people using 21st century or modern as…

You're talking about implementation complexity. The only argument you can throw at the user is feature complexity. Handling spaces in filename isn't a complex feature at all, and users don't care that the simplistic implementation you're using makes it a problem.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#445

Post by dec0dedab0de »

jwdunne wrote: post #327
nineteen999 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems that 90% of computer use has moved into the web browser. This is an extremely (web) developer-centric viewpoint IMHO. Try telling 3D modellers/sculptors, games programmers, audio engineers that 90% of their computer use has moved into a browser. They will look at you with a blank face since they all require traditional "fat" desktop apps to get their work done at professional level. And those are just the…

Do all of those computer users constitute more than 10% of computer users? I don't think there's even 5% of computer users there. Talking about 3D modelling, game programming and producers like they're the majority is a technologist-centric view. Most computer use is by people who think the web is the internet and use 'inbox' as a verb.

Most computer use is by people who think the web is the internet and use 'inbox' as a verb.

I think most of those people dont use general purpose computers anymore

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#446

Post by grive »

coldtea wrote: post #423
hzhou321 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is not a problem. The command line was only one, historical UI. Not the be-all end-all of UIs, A similar trend is happening in electronic communication: from letter to email, to text, to emoji's. The text is just one historical communication way and there's no reason it should be of any real interest to modern communicator as long as we have emojis ... wait, we've been there before.

Only the text can express things that emojis cannot. This is not true to GUI vs command line. The GUI, which can include arbitrary number of text boxes for command line style entry, is a superset of what the command line can do.

This kind of interface is horrific for the use-case:

https://www.powergrep.com/screens/replace.png

There is such a thing as a cluttered graphical interface, and some complexity cannot just be abstracted away.

> The GUI, which can include arbitrary number of text boxes for command line style entry, is a superset of what the command line can do.

That would be like saying that because I am able to write "First open this app by clicking on the upper-left icon, then click File, new File", would mean that text is a superset of the GUI because it can describe visual cues. An abstraction can always replace another, it does not mean it is a superset of it.

Take the source code for your GUI application, this is pure text. In the early days, there was shell code that would describe terminal GUI of sort to configure the linux kernel. This shell code is still commands read token per token with matching behavior. Because an abstraction can be traded for another (which could be argued to be a founding principle of computer science), does not mean that one is a superset of the other.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#447

Post by piano »

Why is it that each time a JS dev discovers something most other fields have been using for decades, it has to be "The Lost Art", "Superpower" (https://medium.com/@wesharehoodies/typescript-javascript-wit...) or something similarly tacky?

There's no Lost Art, no superpowers. It's just the JS scene _finally_ slowly getting up to speed.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#448

Post by [deleted] »

v_lisivka wrote: post #435
Spivak wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window and Linux shells have the same ideas about spaces in file names, which is that if they appear they need to be quoted or the space character needs to be escaped. Outside of Make which has long and boring historical reasons for not supporting spaces well, just about every program is fine with spaces.

In UNIX shell, IFS variable can be set to an other characters, e.g. newline and tab, or to empty string.

[deleted]

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#449

Post by jstimpfle »

grive wrote: post #443
com2kid wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Um... no it doesn't. It takes each space delimited name as a new name. You will need to add "" and quote the names -- but Windows shell only has one level of quoting, (") which means you can't easily type the command you need. Unix shell is a bit better. Unix only appears worse because people do attempt scripting. Ah I see, you have a file "new 2.txt", I was a bit confused. Not sure what you mean by only 1 level of…

> Ah I see, you have a file "new 2.txt", I was a bit confused. This is highly ironical, given this thread. Some people seems to advocate for programs to be better than humans at globbing filenames.

That's a great point. Computers sure have the potential to deal with spaces just fine. But if textual interaction is a requirement, we can only have one of arbitrary filenames and clutter-free syntax.

Re: The Makefile I use with JavaScript projects

#450

Post by gonvaled »

flukus wrote: post #415
gonvaled wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because of the dollar? Exactly my point.

No, not just because of the dollar. Because it's easier to test in isolation and allows you to use things like here docs which are useful for dealing with sql.

?

Somehow we started with a single dollar in a string, and now I am dealing with sql, here docs, and TDD?

There is a place for everything in life: for small helper makefiles, which I write simply to support me in my workflow and even to remember some interesting commands that I need to run for a certain project, I can assure you that making some simple assumptions helps me staying halfway sane.

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