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Exa Is Deprecated

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Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#231

Post by Ferret7446 »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #135
bachmeier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I absolutely love the trend of rewriting classic Unix utilities I avoid them unless I'm capable of maintaining them myself. My primary reason for using classic Unix utilities is trusting that they'll still work in a few years. The initial stages of a rewrite can be a lot of fun, but I want to use it long after the excitement has worn off.

exa was the first utility program to segfault on me in over a decade. Brought me a useful dose of realism about the maturity of these projects, so I'm much more measured and careful about adopting them now.

Wow. Assuming that is true/not due to a misunderstanding, that really brings a dose of reality to the "Rust is safe!" selling point. Doesn't matter if the language is technically safe, if in real world use it still segfaults (even if due to programmer misuse).

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#232

Post by Ferret7446 »

unscaled wrote: post #92
dahfizz wrote: post #49

Yet another example of why I don't trust any software that markets itself as "modern". In another 20 years, ls will still work perfectly fine.

And so will exa, probably. And if it won't, it will be forked. Which is exactly the reason "ls" is working perfectly fine for you today. The original AT&T UNIX "ls" has been forked over and over again and rewritten from scratch several times. You're using an evolved fork of this "ls" if you're using macOS or BSD, but if you're on Linux you're using a rewrite (GNU coreutils ls), and if you're running BusyBox you're us…

I don't know the state of Rust stability, so this may reveal my ignorance, but I have strong doubts that exa will continue to build let alone work in 20 years.

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#233

Post by keepamovin »

boxed wrote: post #101
keepamovin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork. How is it hard? Just fork it.

Do read my article. I have a very clear example of why that actually doesn't work in practice.

I ready it before commenting actually...don't assume what you don't know, right? (it's against the rules: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ;p ;))

I agree your example is clear, I just think it's inaccurate, as in missing some perspective. My is perspective is: fork it, do your own marketing, profit. That's what I did to get where I am? Why think you have some right to someone else's work just 'cause they don't reply to you, and you can piggyback on their marketing without doing the work? That's wrong.

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#234

Post by keepamovin »

boxed wrote: post #229
prmoustache wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you wrote an srticle about it doesn't mean we are all forced to agree with your conclusions and suggestions.

No, but it means that if you argue with me about what I say without having read it, then that makes you kinda silly. It's also a suuuuper short little blog post. I almost always write very short stuff :P

> No, but it means that if you argue with me about what I say without having read it, then that makes you kinda silly.

Not as silly as the person who assumes they didn't read it, when they actually did ;P ;) xx ;p haha!

or you think the only way to disagree with your absolutely right ideas is to have not encountered them, because anyone encountering them can see they are unassailably right?

Come on, that's not a very good view of other people, and an overly inflated view of yourself. They must understand your ideas, just disagree. That's OK, isn't it?

Or, do you write expecting to be agreed with? Well, as you might say "that makes you kinda silly"--the internet is a diverse place!

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#235

Post by devnullbrain »

t43562 wrote: post #129
devnullbrain wrote: post #91

There's a hint of a belief in this thread - common also in threads about alternative shells and Vim setups - that someone who uses a tool like this will irrevocably lose the knowledge of how to use ls. Am I perhaps a genius or is it just not that difficult to know two tools?

Flipping tools has a cost because we have to think more about it. I don't know if you've tried flipping between the windows commandline and bash several times a day but it can be quite annoying just with things like "\" compared to "/" where the automatic part of your brain cannot take over for you and you have to do everything consciously.

I switch between WSL/Powershell, US/UK keyboard layouts and Ubuntu/Windows/Mac shortcuts frequently. It only usually takes one mistake to context switch. It usually harder for me to switch to things I use infrequently - but they also matter less.

> "\" compared to "/"

Powershell :)

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#236

Post by pdimitar »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #227
pdimitar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I'm using several Rust tools replacing classic UNIX programs for at least 3 years now and they never crashed. Beware of [HN] bias. People are very quick to rain on Rust for reasons none of them have ever explained substantively and with facts, and many others are quick to agree without checking.

> Beware of [HN] bias. People are very quick to rain on Rust for reasons none of them have ever explained substantively and with facts, and many others are quick to agree without checking. I'm not sure what this paragraph is doing in this context. I was specifically talking about my own experience. I see far more praise for Rust compared to negative comments in any case, and was biased towards assuming "Rust rewrites…

> I'm not sure what this paragraph is doing in this context. I was specifically talking about my own experience.

Just a small precautionary statement. I've observed it enough times to get very wary of it.

> I see far more praise for Rust compared to negative comments in any case, and was biased towards assuming "Rust rewrites of tools may lack features (due to being newer) or be less portable or whatever else, but the one thing they'll have is stability and reliability".

Filter bubbles in a nutshell, I usually see mostly negative ones and barely see any praise (though I'd define "praise" here as "fan-boying", and NOT as "recognizing the strong sides"; the latter is quite normal and should not be called praising).

> That came crashing down when exa crashed and core dumped.

That's the part I find a bit overly dramatic, this was likely Rust's `panic` mechanism so they likely just didn't handle an expectation / assertion in the code? I had several Rust services in production for years and former colleagues have contacted me to tell me the thing hasn't crashed even once and was only ever restarted for upgrades.

> It didn't turn me into some anti-Rust fanatic either (which people seem to interpret any criticism of Rust-related things as), it just made me realize that in the end it's still up to the individual tool and programmer, and I shouldn't make strong assumptions based on the language a tool is written in.

Yes, fair. If you pepper your Rust code with `.expect()` and `.unwrap()`, the program ending abruptly is expected because the team hasn't taken precautions to handle all possible errors.

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#237

Post by DiabloD3 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #204
DiabloD3 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the issue with nerdfonts is the project, itself, is broken and flawed. They use the nerdfont patcher, which mainly mutilates fonts, and often breaks them trying to add the nerdfont glyphs. The nerdfonts project also distributes these broken fonts while ignoring the font licenses, and also ignoring the fact that fonts update and then nerdfonts refuses to patch and distribute the new version. Many projects distribu…

>So, the issue with nerdfonts is the project, itself, is broken and flawed. The issue also lays with LSD, since they recommend Nerd Fonts.

Partially, yeah.

I always try to push projects to, if they choose to support nerdfonts, to default to off. It is confusing for new users to have to install a specific font (especially when they probably already have their chosen font, and possibly one that can't be nerdfont patched) to use a program.

LSD, in particular, can just either turn symbols off or just map them to commonly available Unicode symbols (a "well formed" terminal font covers most of, if not all, of the Box Drawing, Geo Shapes, Legacy Computing, and Arrows Unicode blocks, which is all you really need).

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#238

Post by just_testing »

pdimitar wrote: post #224
sundarurfriend wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exa was the first utility program to segfault on me in over a decade. Brought me a useful dose of realism about the maturity of these projects, so I'm much more measured and careful about adopting them now.

For what it's worth, I'm using several Rust tools replacing classic UNIX programs for at least 3 years now and they never crashed. Beware of [HN] bias. People are very quick to rain on Rust for reasons none of them have ever explained substantively and with facts, and many others are quick to agree without checking.

Which tools, if I may ask?

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#239

Post by Night_Thastus »

benrutter wrote: post #194
Night_Thastus wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to like LSD. I really, really, REALLY do. But holy hell is getting a working font a nightmare. I spent multiple days desperately trying to figure out font issues, because LSD refuses to list what fonts actually work for it. And if you just use something from Nerd Fonts thinking it will work (which is what LSD recommends, btw), you'll find that 3/4 or more are missing some stupid symbol or another that LSD uses…

Sounds like you probably don't want any more headaches setting up LSD, but in case anyone else is reading this, LSD will let you specify in a config to use unicode symbols, or none at all, instead of nerd font style icons which would avoid your font issues

I just tried this. It seems to work OK, though it just gives empty missing boxes for a few things, like text files, python script, etc.

Re: Exa Is Deprecated

#240

Post by mercenario »

devnullbrain wrote: post #91

There's a hint of a belief in this thread - common also in threads about alternative shells and Vim setups - that someone who uses a tool like this will irrevocably lose the knowledge of how to use ls. Am I perhaps a genius or is it just not that difficult to know two tools?

The problem is not ls. You use hundreds, thousands of commands, tools, programs, libraries every day, today is exa, tomorrow could be a different one, and then a different one. In 5 years you update your linux distribution and exa stop working, but it is not maintained anymore so there will be no fix, and then you curse yourself for building all your scripts using exa and having to update then. The probability for each individual tool in negligible, but it is multiplied by every new one you use.
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