Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fucking Shell Scripts

fuckingshellscripts.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 180 posts

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#12

Post by raverbashing »

qwerty_asdf wrote: post #10

"Wanna just use fucking shell scripts to configure a server? Read on!" Step 0: Install the gem # gem install fucking_shell_scripts # gem: command not found wat.

Exactly

If I want to use FSS to configure the server, I already do. I don't need the "latest fad in configuration tool" to do something FSSs already do!

Like fabric. If you're not using their advanced features, you're writing a shell script in python.

Thanks, I'll write a shell script

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#13

Post by nawitus »

RyanZAG wrote: post #8

Honestly this is not a bad idea. Since bringing up a new instance VM will always be in exactly the same state, the shell script is completely deterministic. If any line fails to run, you could simply log an error and automatically shut down the VM. The bash script itself is also extremely straight forward and is easily testable with a built in REPL (you know, bash). Anybody who vaguely knows unix is also going to be…

Typically shell scripts are fine in the beginning, but over time the complexity rises and it becomes an unmaintanable mess, and you'll end up reimplementing it in a proper programming language.

Shell scripts are not easily portable either, unless by "portable" you mean "works in Linux". Node.js scripts, for example, really (mostly) work on Linux and other platforms like Windows.

Until you hit some nasty "path is longer than 254 characters" bugs. Oh well..

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#14

Post by michaelmior »

nawitus wrote: post #13
RyanZAG wrote: post #8

Honestly this is not a bad idea. Since bringing up a new instance VM will always be in exactly the same state, the shell script is completely deterministic. If any line fails to run, you could simply log an error and automatically shut down the VM. The bash script itself is also extremely straight forward and is easily testable with a built in REPL (you know, bash). Anybody who vaguely knows unix is also going to be…

Typically shell scripts are fine in the beginning, but over time the complexity rises and it becomes an unmaintanable mess, and you'll end up reimplementing it in a proper programming language. Shell scripts are not easily portable either, unless by "portable" you mean "works in Linux". Node.js scripts, for example, really (mostly) work on Linux and other platforms like Windows. Until you hit some nasty "path is long…

Why do you really need it to be portable outside of Linux? I don't imagine many services will evolve to run on other platforms in their lifetime without significant configuration changes anyway.

I can't really argue the point about complexity though.

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#16

Post by dogas »

Coauthor here. Well, this is a surprise! This project was mainly borne out of our frustrations with Chef and then Ansible for configuring our servers.

A few thoughts: 1) This project is incomplete and is more of a concept than anything. We wrote it literally in an afternoon, and were giggling like schoolgirls the whole time.

2) There is value in what Ansible provides. It does a lot of things for you. FSS did not replace ansible where we work.

All that being said however, I feel like this (or a project like this) does have merit, if executed properly. I feel that once you get used to how FSS works, it might be a good solution for you. We intentionally tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#17

Post by michaelmior »

It would be nice if there was a way to use this without having to deal with obscenities. Not everyone finds this funny. Useful idea though :) At least for early stage projects, I can imagine it getting complicated quickly.

Re: Fucking Shell Scripts

#19

Post by tachion »

michaelmior wrote: post #14
nawitus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically shell scripts are fine in the beginning, but over time the complexity rises and it becomes an unmaintanable mess, and you'll end up reimplementing it in a proper programming language. Shell scripts are not easily portable either, unless by "portable" you mean "works in Linux". Node.js scripts, for example, really (mostly) work on Linux and other platforms like Windows. Until you hit some nasty "path is long…

Why do you really need it to be portable outside of Linux? I don't imagine many services will evolve to run on other platforms in their lifetime without significant configuration changes anyway. I can't really argue the point about complexity though.

Because there are other operating systems out there too, with their own features making them better choice (or just a preference) for certain tasks over Linux, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, SmartOS, Illumos... World doesnt end with Linux, neither starts with it ;)
Post reply on HN