X user-configuration on Ubuntu

[crankypuss]

Never used X before coming to Ubuntu. In looking to set up urxvt to get
a non-microscopic font, what I find is some information about
~/.Xdefaults which seems not to exist. Hunting around, I find
/etc/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/Xresources/ and so forth.

Needless to say, I am not optimistic about messing with the system-wide
/etc/X11/ settings since I don't have a clue what I'm doing here. Would
appreciate any brief clues... if I have to read a dozen books, there are
more important things to be done until much later.

I did use google and apparently Ubuntu doesn't much encourage user
configuration of X and does things with whatever, gt or some such
stick-on thinger. Found lots of people asking why ~/.Xdefaults gets
ignored, but not much comprehensible information on the solutions side
of things.

So, if you're inclined to help an X Windows noob, great; if not, that's
perfectly understandable.

[J G Miller]

On Wednesday, January 9th, 2013, at 04:06:35h -0700, Cranky Puss observed:

> Hunting around, I find /etc/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/Xresources/
> and so forth.

As suggested in an earlier posting, leaving the system installed
Xdefaults files where they are since they can be used as a fallback.

Create your own app-defaults directory if you want settings to be
applied to all users under /usr/local. I use /usr/local/X11R6/app-defaults
since I try to keep all locally installed (locally installed means not
installed from the packaging system be it deb or rpm) programs and
related files under /usr/local/X11R6, and most of the files are
actually managed with stow, so are in fact symbolic links to a
/usr/local/stow/{package_name}/X11R6 directory.

You then need to set the environmental variable XAPPLRESDIR to that
path and export it, in a file before the system Xsession file is
called or at the very beginning of the system Xsession file.

It is then a good idea to hunt out the xrdb load script on your system
or create your own and then call that from the system Xsession file.

The advantage of having such a script is that should one need to
re-initialize the loaded X11 resources during an X11 session, one
only has to execute the script, or possibly if one is one using
some remote login and doing some none standard manipulations.

Loading resources for often used applications is more efficient
than reading the file everytime a new instance of the application
is started and there are a X11 applications still in existence which
the lazy(?) programmer has written so that some application properties
are only read from the X11 resource database.

For those who are interested, otherwise hit "n" now






#! /bin/sh

#*****************************************************************************#
#|
#| file : ${X11_ETC}/Xrdb
#|
#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Set log file environmental variable and delete existing log file.

LOG_XRDB="${HOME}/Log_Xrdb.log"
rm -f ${LOG_XRDB}

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Redirect stdout and stderror to log file.

# exec 1> ${LOG_XRDB} 2> ${LOG_XRDB}
# set -x

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# If environmental variable for display is not set, then exit.

if [ -z ${DISPLAY} ]
then
echo "%ERROR - environmental variable for DISPLAY is not set!" >&2
exit 1
fi

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Check that client is authorized to connect to display.

xrdb -symbols 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null
xrdb_status=${?}

if [ ${xrdb_status} -ne 0 ]
then
echo "%ERROR - unable to connect to display ${DISPLAY}!" >&2
exit 2
fi

unset xrdb_status

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Set variable for Xsession options file.

options_file="/etc/X11/Xsession.options"

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Process command arguments.

if [ "${1}" = "wait" ]
then
wait=3
else
wait=0
fi

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Function to load resources file if resources file is readable.

load_resources ()
{

xrdb_options="${1}"

resource_file="${2}"

test -r "${resource_file}" && xrdb ${xrdb_options} "${resource_file}"

unset xrdb_options resource_file

return

}

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# If environmental variable for X defaults is not set, then set it.

if [ -z "${XDEFAULTS}" ]
then

if [ -r ${HOME}/.Xdefaults ]
then
XDEFAULTS="${HOME}/.Xdefaults"
else
XDEFAULTS="${XAPPLRESDIR}/.Xdefaults"
fi

export XDEFAULTS

fi

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Clear resource manager.

xrdb -remove

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Set X terminal class environmental variable if not set.

if [ -z "${X_TERM_CLASS}" ]
then

executable="`command -v urxvt`"

if [ -n "${executable}" ]
then

X_TERM_CLASS="URxvt"

else

executable="`command -v rxvt`"

if [ -n "${executable}" ]
then
X_TERM_CLASS="Rxvt"
else
X_TERM_CLASS="XTerm"
fi

fi

export X_TERM_CLASS

unset executable

fi

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Determine if xrdb cpp parameter is set in XSession options file.

xrdb_cpp=""

if [ -r "${options_file}" ]
then

xrdb_parameter="`sed -ne 's|^xrdb-use-cpp=||p' ${options_file}`"

if [ -n "${xrdb_parameter}" ]
then
xrdb_parameter="`command -v ${xrdb_parameter}`"
test -n "${xrdb_parameter}" && xrdb_cpp="-cpp ${xrdb_parameter}"
fi

unset xrdb_parameter

fi

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Load resources files.

sleep ${wait}

user="`id | sed -e 's|^[^(]*(\([^)]*\).*|\1|'`"

xrdb -remove

load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} ${X_XRDB_FLAGS}" "${XAPPLRESDIR}/.Xdefaults"

load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} ${X_XRDB_FLAGS}" "${XAPPLRESDIR}/Xft"

test "${DESKTOP}" = "MWM" && \
load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} ${X_XRDB_FLAGS}" "${XAPPLRESDIR}/Mwm"

test "${X_TERM_CLASS}" = "XTerm" || \
load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} -merge" "${XAPPLRESDIR}/${X_TERM_CLASS}"

load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} -merge" "${XAPPLRESDIR}/Emacs"

load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} -merge" "/tmp/.X11-${user}/.xdefaults-${DISPLAY}"

test "${XDEFAULTS}" = "${XAPPLRESDIR}/.Xdefaults" -o \
"${XDEFAULTS}" = "${HOME}/.Xdefaults" || \
load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} -merge" "${XDEFAULTS}"

load_resources "${xrdb_cpp} -merge" "${HOME}/.Xdefaults"

#*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*#
#
# Remove temporary variables.

unset load_resources user wait xrdb_cpp

#*****************************************************************************#

[mechanic]

On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:06:35 -0700, crankypuss wrote:

> Never used X before coming to Ubuntu. In looking to set up urxvt to get
> a non-microscopic font, what I find is some information about
> ~/.Xdefaults which seems not to exist. Hunting around, I find
> /etc/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/Xresources/ and so forth.

Your settings for Urxvt should go in ~/.Xdefaults, if that file
doesn't exist you will need to create it. The resources are picky,
you need to get their names right and remember they are case
sensitive. There are plenty of web sites to copy suitable values for
the fonts from.

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2013-01-09, crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
> Never used X before coming to Ubuntu. In looking to set up urxvt to get
> a non-microscopic font, what I find is some information about
> ~/.Xdefaults which seems not to exist. Hunting around, I find

If that is so, then why are you posting like you're on the other side
of a temporal vortex where it's still the mid 90s?

--
"If I give you a pfennig, you will be one pfennig richer and
I'll be one pfennig poorer. But if I give you an idea, you will |||
have a new idea, but I shall still have it, too." / | \
~ Albert Einstein

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2013-01-09, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 9th, 2013, at 04:06:35h -0700, Cranky Puss observed:
>
>> Hunting around, I find /etc/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/Xresources/
>> and so forth.
>
> As suggested in an earlier posting, leaving the system installed
> Xdefaults files where they are since they can be used as a fallback.
>
> Create your own app-defaults directory if you want settings to be
> applied to all users under /usr/local. I use /usr/local/X11R6/app-defaults

...or you could just poke around in the menus until you find something that
controls global defaults for fonts. I haven't touched most of those files
since the 90s.

[deletia]

[J G Miller]

On Wednesday, January 9th, 2013, at 10:44:24h -0600, JEDIDIAH wrote:

> ...or you could just poke around in the menus until you find something that
> controls global defaults for fonts.

Which menu?

URxvt does not use font settings from the GNOME or KDE or
XFCE or whatever desktop, so what your are suggesting is
pointless.

[Dave Gibson]

[aolu dropped from Followup-To:]

crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
> Never used X before coming to Ubuntu. In looking to set up urxvt to get
> a non-microscopic font, what I find is some information about
> ~/.Xdefaults which seems not to exist.

Create one. (I'm not using Ubuntu, YMMV etc).

! urxvt section
! urxvt*font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-14-130-75-75-c-70-iso8859-1
urxvt*font: -*-fixed-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
urxvt*background: DarkSlateGrey
urxvt*foreground: Wheat

[crankypuss]

On 01/09/2013 06:19 AM, J G Miller wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 9th, 2013, at 04:06:35h -0700, Cranky Puss observed:
>
>> Hunting around, I find /etc/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/Xresources/
>> and so forth.
>
> As suggested in an earlier posting, leaving the system installed
> Xdefaults files where they are since they can be used as a fallback.

[lots of apparently great stuff snipped]

Thanks, info stashed for study a couple cups of coffee later today.

[crankypuss]

Thanks, the idea of there being a bunch of settings I never heard of
isn't offputting, but knowing where to put them and how to get them
looked at leaves me in "huh?" state. If I had a very basic ~/.Xdefaults
file that did something obvious (big clown fonts or whatever) so one
could tell it was being used, modifying it should not be difficult,
presuming that Ubuntu doesn't just ignore its existence. I guess that
the gnome developers in their great wisdom realize that all this X
Windows stuff should be hidden from the uninitiated beneath qt or gtk or
whatever library they found to their taste. Go figure.

[crankypuss]

On 01/09/2013 09:42 AM, JEDIDIAH wrote:
> On 2013-01-09, crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
>> Never used X before coming to Ubuntu. In looking to set up urxvt to get
>> a non-microscopic font, what I find is some information about
>> ~/.Xdefaults which seems not to exist. Hunting around, I find
>
> If that is so, then why are you posting like you're on the other side
> of a temporal vortex where it's still the mid 90s?
>

Sorry man, I'm a moron; maybe that's the answer to your question, or
maybe it's the reason you'll need to spell out whatever you're trying to
say a little more clearly.

The mid-90s are still decades into the future from where I live, back
here in the dark ages there are interface manuals and one can read them,
but here in this bizarre time I find myself in there are mutant web
forums and shite code one can attempt to read if it can be found and
deciphered.

You are entirely free to ignore this thread you know, sonny; I can spend
the time otherwise used to read your insults by doing something useful
like writing some code.

[crankypuss]

Thanks.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:08:35h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:

> Thanks, info stashed for study a couple cups of coffee later today.

Your are most welcome, but please do not overdose on the caffeine ;)

Remember GNU/Linux is a never ending marathon not a 100 metre sprint:
the hardest part is the first few steps to try and find the right
direction to go.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:16:58h -0700, Cranky Puss pondered:

> If I had a very basic ~/.Xdefaults file that did something obvious
> (big clown fonts or whatever) so one could tell it was being used,
> modifying it should not be difficult,

The one redeeming feature of apps-defaults files is that errors
are not fatal.

Most importantly note though that comment lines begin with ! and not #

> presuming that Ubuntu doesn't just ignore its existence.

From what I can tell from /etc/mdm/Init/Default, which is probably
the same or very similar to /etc/gdm3/Init/Default, the X11 startup script
does not invoke xrdb to merge in the user's .Xdefaults
file.

This is hardly surprising since GNOME and MDM and KDE do not expect
nor want the user to be using non-their-widget-toolkit applications.

> I guess that the gnome developers in their great wisdom realize that
> all this X Windows stuff should be hidden from the uninitiated beneath
> qt or gtk or whatever library they found to their taste.

Applications defaults have always been kept quiet even from
raw X11 days, but you only have to read the relevant section
of the X server to learn about how they are implemented.

QUOTE

RESOURCES
To make the tailoring of applications to personal preferences easier, X
provides a mechanism for storing default values for program resources
(e.g. background color, window title, etc.) that is used by programs
that use toolkits based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics library libXt.

... [Please read further for all the gory details]

UNQUOTE


A quick and dirty hack to ensure that any file (including $HOME/.Xdefaults)
is treated as an app-defaults file and I think give it maximum priority
is to do

export XENVIRONMENT="path_to_file" in bash or ksh

or setenv XENVIRONMENT "path_to_file" in csh or tcsh

Another quick and dirty hack for GDM3 only or MDM only is to
test for the presence of the user's application defaults file and
then merge it into the X resources database in the
/etc/{gdm3,mdm}/PostLogin/Default file.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:24:09h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:

> The mid-90s are still decades into the future from where I live

Assuming -0700 is a true reflection of your time zone, does that
mean you live in or somewhere near Yellowknife?

> by doing something useful like writing some code.

But only in php? ;)

[mike]

Linux is more like a distributed maze...or maybe a maze of
distributions. No matter where you are, there's always another choice
of direction and no street signs.

Maybe you get lucky and find your way to the cheese. Maybe
it's a flavor you can tolerate. Maybe you're a happy camper.
Maybe you generalize your success to include all other possible
sub-mazes and terminal cheeses and take up denigrating
newbies as a hobby.

For many of us, finding a palatable cheese exceeds our attention span.
We grow weary of the never-ending maze. We just wanna get back into
the kitchen and brew up some macaroni and cheese.

[Jonathan N. Little]

mike wrote:
> For many of us,

*many*? Seems more like 3, possibly 4.

> finding a palatable cheese exceeds our attention span.

Might point to the problem.

> We grow weary of the never-ending maze. We just wanna get back into
> the kitchen and brew up some macaroni and cheese.

If you do not want to learn something new, why are you trying something
new? It is like an old fart grousing while traveling on vacation that
"It ain't like home"!


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 10:05:15h -0800, Mike observed:

> or maybe a maze of distributions.

Have you ever had a look at this pedigree chart of GNU/Linux distributions?

<http://upload.wikimedia.ORG/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Gldt1009.svg>

> No matter where you are, there's always another choice
> of direction and no street signs.

There are street signs and each quartier has signs to the local
favorite hot spots (applications) but almost no "general direction"
signs or how to get on to the freeway.

> Maybe you get lucky and find your way to the cheese. Maybe
> it's a flavor you can tolerate.

Or you find guvcview is more to your liking.

> Maybe you're a happy camper.

Book your tickets for 2013 now!

<http://www.linuxcamp.ORG>

> Maybe you generalize your success to include all other possible
> sub-mazes and terminal cheeses and take up denigrating
> newbies as a hobby.

"Slackware" -- an aboriginal word, meaning "Gentoo is too hard for me".

> For many of us, finding a palatable cheese exceeds our attention span.

Which explains why the Wine is so popular?

> We just wanna get back into the kitchen and brew up some macaroni and cheese.

From MacroKraft Incorporated, where the cardboard box tastes better and is
more nutritional than the contents?

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:25:19h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:

> Thanks.

But do not forget that it will look better with an xft specified font
rather than old X11 font thanks to the features of the Xft system
which makes anti-aliasing amongst other things possible to improve
the appearance of fonts.

As I originally suggested for an easier to read better looking
font with serifs,

URxvt.font: xft:Luxi Mono:autohint=true:pixelsize=16
URxvt.boldFont: xft:Luxi Mono:autohint=true:bold:pixelsize=16
URxvt.italicFont: xft:Luxi Mono:autohint=true:italic:pixelsize=16
URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Luxi Mono:autohint=true:bold:italic:pixelsize=16


If you do not like that use fc-list to list all your fonts or
use something like gnome-font-viewer (except v3.60 appears to be
broken, or maybe just cannot cope with too many fonts) to be able
to chose from appearance.



And how come a Cranky Puss does not use <http://www.linpus.COM/> ? ;)

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2013-01-10, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:
> On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 10:05:15h -0800, Mike observed:
>
>> or maybe a maze of distributions.
>
> Have you ever had a look at this pedigree chart of GNU/Linux distributions?
>
><http://upload.wikimedia.ORG/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Gldt1009.svg>
>

[deletia]

>> Maybe you're a happy camper.
>
> Book your tickets for 2013 now!
>
> <http://www.linuxcamp.ORG>
>
>> Maybe you generalize your success to include all other possible
>> sub-mazes and terminal cheeses and take up denigrating
>> newbies as a hobby.

You are trying to conflate newbie and moron.

They aren't the same thing.

Not everyone is crippled by choice like some communist retaard.
Ignorance is a curable condition and many people are willing and able
to help cure themselves of this condition.

--
Nothing quite gives you an understanding of mysql's |||
popularity as does an attempt to do some simple date / | \
manipulations in postgres.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 21:07:12h +0000, J G Miller warbled:

> or use something like gnome-font-viewer

Possible better alternatives to gnome-font-viewer at

<http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/Linux%20font%20preview%20applications.htm>

and for a not bad looking non serif font in urxvt try this one

urxvt -font "xft:Liberation Mono:pixelsize=18"

[crankypuss]

On 01/10/2013 08:59 AM, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:08:35h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:
>
>> Thanks, info stashed for study a couple cups of coffee later today.
>
> Your are most welcome, but please do not overdose on the caffeine ;)

Wow, is that actually possible?

> Remember GNU/Linux is a never ending marathon not a 100 metre sprint:
> the hardest part is the first few steps to try and find the right
> direction to go.

It's my observation fwiw that over time those little configuration files
people have slapped together tend to take on a life of their own and the
underlying mechanics of it all becomes "lore". So yes, one does have to
find some stable footing before mucking out the stables, but just
throwing hay on it and calling it the new floor might not be the best
approach. I read about "qt this" and "gtk that" and "kde blah blah" and
mostly what I look for is a way to lay my hands on the interface that is
closest to the business end of the lowest-level abstraction likely to
stay put.

It isn't so much that I'm a masochist, but over the years the effort of
writing code that does the same thing when running in forty-eleven
different environments on thirty-teen different releases of what is
supposedly the same system has become real tiresome, and a programmer is
after all someone willing to work himself nearly to death in order to
avoid doing needless work. <g>

[crankypuss]

Sometimes it's easier in the long run to take up farming.

[crankypuss]

On 01/10/2013 09:18 AM, J G Miller wrote:

> QUOTE
>
> RESOURCES
> To make the tailoring of applications to personal preferences easier, X
> provides a mechanism for storing default values for program resources
> (e.g. background color, window title, etc.) that is used by programs
> that use toolkits based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics library libXt.
>
> ... [Please read further for all the gory details]
>
> UNQUOTE

Source of quote?

> A quick and dirty hack to ensure that any file (including $HOME/.Xdefaults)
> is treated as an app-defaults file and I think give it maximum priority
> is to do
>
> export XENVIRONMENT="path_to_file" in bash or ksh
>
> or setenv XENVIRONMENT "path_to_file" in csh or tcsh

Ugh, more shell stuff. One of these days... <g>

[crankypuss]

On 01/10/2013 09:26 AM, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, January 10th, 2013, at 04:24:09h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:
>
>> The mid-90s are still decades into the future from where I live
>
> Assuming -0700 is a true reflection of your time zone, does that
> mean you live in or somewhere near Yellowknife?

Never heard of Yellowknife before. Include in your computations the
fact that my normal (in the sense of "usual") start of day happens
somewhere around midnight local time... by the time most of the locals
are (presumably) slapping at the alarm clock, I'm looking for a little
siesta before starting my second shift. While it's true that I'm older
than I once was, it's also true that the need to sleep away memories of
the bullshit I had to put up with at work is reduced to zero.

>> by doing something useful like writing some code.
>
> But only in php? ;)
>

For now. The thing about PHP is that, unlike bash, it's a "real"
programming language in which one could write a compiler and so forth
should one be so mad as to do so.

[crankypuss]

I don't know much about fonts. In olden days there was only what the
hardware supplied, take it or leave it. In somewhat more recent
(Windows) days there were .TTF (and other now-forgotten) fonts that
could be selected into a device context and rendered by something under
the hood. Now there are apparently some other, perhaps older, kinds of
fonts... or maybe just other methods of specifying fonts, I don't know.
Maybe the fonts specified in html via family and suchlike are the same
as the TrueType fonts in a .TTF file and also the same as whatever is
specified by the older/newer X11/xft specifications. It's probably a
lot simpler just to read a .TTF file and figure out what's in it and
paint the damned thing bit by bit than it is to grasp all the available
methods of specification.

> And how come a Cranky Puss does not use <http://www.linpus.COM/> ? ;)

Hemorrhoids are easy enough to get that one need not go out of his way
to obtain them.

[mechanic]

crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:

> For now. The thing about PHP is that, unlike bash, it's a "real"
> programming language in which one could write a compiler and so forth
> should one be so mad as to do so.

Stand by for a 100 lines or so of Aragorn rant explaining that bash is
Turing Complete (or not)!!!

[MrTallyman]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:46:43 +0000 (UTC), mechanic <mech...@example.net>
wrote:

Yet another total fucking retard who cannot help chiming in with his
retarded baby bullshit.

There are groups where retarded fucks like you belong.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 03:24:16h -0700, Cranky Puss opined:

> closest to the business end of the lowest-level abstraction likely to
> stay put.

Even X11 is under threat from the Wayland developers.

<http://wayland.freedesktop.ORG/architecture.html>

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 03:37:01h -0700, Cranky Puss asked:

> Source of quote?

Clearly "you only have to read the relevant section of the X server to learn
about how they are implemented." was not sufficiently clear enough --

man X

and then go down to the section "RESOURCES"

> Ugh, more shell stuff.

If you want to administer a Unix (tm) or GNU/Linux system, then
you cannot avoid shell scripts.

And even though upstart replaces the SystemVInit system of shell scripts,
each upstart configuration file does contain fragment(s) of Bourne shell script.

[J G Miller]

[J G Miller]

[J G Miller]

[Aragorn]

On Friday 11 January 2013 13:46, mechanic conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux...

I don't need 100 lines for that, nor a rant.

GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
find, et al.

GNU Bash, like any Bourne-compatible shell or even non-Bourne-compatible
shells such as the C shell - on GNU/Linux, this would typically be tcsh
- provides for an interactive environment, from which on-disk
executables can be started.

The conclusion is that UNIX-like operating systems with a UNIX-like
shell environment are Turing-complete both with and without a graphical
user interface. GNU Bash is just one component of the system. If it
were Turing-complete in and of itself, there wouldn't be a need for the
other utilities.

UNIX is a toolbox, full of tools which are designed to do one thing only
but do that brilliantly, rather than to do everything but do it poorly.
One picks the tool that one needs or likes the best, and there are
alternative ways of accomplishing the same thing, so one is not stuck to
a single method. Form and function are separated.

The mistake "crankypuss" made in his statement higher up is that he
confuses GNU Bash with the command line. A command line environment is
bigger than the shell itself, because the shell only has a limited
amount of built-ins, and the other commands are invoked by using the on-
disk executables. Some shells have less built-ins, and as such, many
functions and commands of GNU Bash are also represented on-disk as
individual and distinct executables, such as /bin/echo, to name but one.

--
= Aragorn =
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 03:51:50h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:

> Never heard of Yellowknife before.

How strange.

"Yellowknife is the capital city of the Northwest Territories"

Official web page at <http://www.yellowknife.CA/>

> While it's true that I'm older than I once was

Does any living person exist who is not older than they once were?

> The thing about PHP is that, unlike bash, it's a "real"
> programming language in which one could write a compiler

You see this is where you have an attitude problem.

Bourne shell was not and has never intended to be a programming language.

It is a scripting language whose main purpose is to launch other
executables and to provide a few rudimentary constructs to provide
some intelligent routing (if,case, while, etc).

Bash was written to provide more bells and whistles particularly
for use as a login shell (to compete against tcsh) and to
make the programming aspects less reliant on external programs.

My biased attitude is that if one needs to use the extra features of
bash over Bourne shell then perhaps one should consider using
PERL instead, or for those who prefer OO, python, or now for OO,
a beter choice instead would be ruby.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 04:07:51h -0700, Cranky Puss pondered:

> Maybe the fonts specified in html via family and suchlike are the same
> as the TrueType fonts in a .TTF file and also the same as whatever is
> specified by the older/newer X11/xft specifications.

You forget that the concept of WWW and HTML is that the web page suggests
the appearance but the actual appearance is down to the browser.

Since Firefox and other browsers running on GNU/Linux have long since
abandoned the old X11 font method and adopted Xft, so when a web page
recommends using say Arial font, the browser consults the Xft database
of fonts and will use, if present on the system, the Arial font supplied
from a .ttf file, eg

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial.ttf

So if you really want to use an inappropriate font in a urxvt and have
the msttcorefonts installed

urxvt -font "xft:Comic Sans MS:pixelsize=14"

> Hemorrhoids are easy enough to get that one need not go out of his way
> to obtain them.

Did your mother never warn you not to "strain yourself"?
Eat more fiber!

[mechanic]

Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
> On Friday 11 January 2013 13:46, mechanic conveyed the following to
> alt.os.linux...
>
>> crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> For now. The thing about PHP is that, unlike bash, it's a "real"
>>> programming language in which one could write a compiler and so forth
>>> should one be so mad as to do so.
>>
>> Stand by for a 100 lines or so of Aragorn rant explaining that bash is
>> Turing Complete (or not)!!!
>
> I don't need 100 lines for that, nor a rant.

Now let's see if he gets this right.....ohhhhh.....

>
> GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
> lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
> functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
> That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
> find, et al.
>
> GNU Bash, like any Bourne-compatible shell or even non-Bourne-compatible
> shells such as the C shell - on GNU/Linux, this would typically be tcsh
> - provides for an interactive environment, from which on-disk
> executables can be started.
>
> The conclusion is that UNIX-like operating systems with a UNIX-like
> shell environment are Turing-complete both with and without a graphical
> user interface. GNU Bash is just one component of the system. If it
> were Turing-complete in and of itself, there wouldn't be a need for the
> other utilities.

Fallacy alert!!

>
> UNIX is a toolbox, full of tools which are designed to do one thing only
> but do that brilliantly, rather than to do everything but do it poorly.
> One picks the tool that one needs or likes the best, and there are
> alternative ways of accomplishing the same thing, so one is not stuck to
> a single method. Form and function are separated.
>
> The mistake "crankypuss" made in his statement higher up is that he
> confuses GNU Bash with the command line. A command line environment is
> bigger than the shell itself, because the shell only has a limited
> amount of built-ins, and the other commands are invoked by using the on-
> disk executables. Some shells have less built-ins, and as such, many
> functions and commands of GNU Bash are also represented on-disk as
> individual and distinct executables, such as /bin/echo, to name but one.

Oh dear,where to start ?
A simple Google search will turn up many references explaining that the
bash shell is indeed Turing Complete. Utilities like awk/sed etc. are there
for convenience , in principle one could write them as shell scripts but
they wouldn't be very efficient.

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2013-01-11, mechanic <mech...@example.net> wrote:
> Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>> On Friday 11 January 2013 13:46, mechanic conveyed the following to
>> alt.os.linux...
>>
>>> crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:

[deletia]

>> GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
>> lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
>> functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
>> That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
>> find, et al.
>>
>> GNU Bash, like any Bourne-compatible shell or even non-Bourne-compatible
>> shells such as the C shell - on GNU/Linux, this would typically be tcsh
>> - provides for an interactive environment, from which on-disk
>> executables can be started.
>>
>> The conclusion is that UNIX-like operating systems with a UNIX-like
>> shell environment are Turing-complete both with and without a graphical
>> user interface. GNU Bash is just one component of the system. If it
>> were Turing-complete in and of itself, there wouldn't be a need for the
>> other utilities.
>
> Fallacy alert!!

The fallacy is the question.

The point of Unix or bash is not to be trapped in a single tool.

[deletia]

--
The social cost of suing/prosecuting individuals |||
for non-commercial copyright infringement far outweighs / | \
the social value of copyright to begin with.

[crankypuss]

Didn't read it. Sticks and stones and threats etc. At the moment I'm
using ncurses. The abstraction I'm building is far from complete. Once
it is, I'll see where it might like to run.

[crankypuss]

On 01/11/2013 09:23 AM, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 03:51:50h -0700, Cranky Puss wrote:
>
>> Never heard of Yellowknife before.
>
> How strange.
>
> "Yellowknife is the capital city of the Northwest Territories"
>
> Official web page at <http://www.yellowknife.CA/>

There are lots of places I've never heard of; they get to exist anyway,
and so do I.

>> While it's true that I'm older than I once was
>
> Does any living person exist who is not older than they once were?

(a) Do vampires and zombies age, and (b) do vampires and zombies exist?
I'd say "no". I, however, do age, at present.

>> The thing about PHP is that, unlike bash, it's a "real"
>> programming language in which one could write a compiler
>
> You see this is where you have an attitude problem.

It is not me who has the attitude problem. <G>

> Bourne shell was not and has never intended to be a programming language.
>
> It is a scripting language whose main purpose is to launch other
> executables and to provide a few rudimentary constructs to provide
> some intelligent routing (if,case, while, etc).

I agree, unfortunately a bunch of bozos have tried to use it as a
programming language, and it isn't quite obvious enough to them that
they have failed... instead their code just fails to work whenever the
stars are improperly aligned, which is of course an operator error
(something they cannot be bothered to repair since bash is so
wonderfully convenient).

> My biased attitude is that if one needs to use the extra features of
> bash over Bourne shell then perhaps one should consider using
> PERL instead, or for those who prefer OO, python, or now for OO,
> a beter choice instead would be ruby.

It's my opinion that PHP was developed because Perl didn't cut the mustard:

"PHP development began in 1994 when the programmer Rasmus Lerdorf
initially created a set of Perl scripts he called "Personal Home Page
Tools" to maintain his personal homepage."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP#History

It's also my opinion that PHP is a typical result of undisciplined and
uncoordinated thrashing around, thus such obvious defects as the lack of
naming conventions have allowed is_array() and isset() to be
inconsistent and so forth and so on.

It sucks, just not as hard as bash, nor a pickily as C. 'Tis not so
wide as a churchdoor nor so deep as a well, but 'twill suffice.

[JEDIDIAH]

It's a great irony that Microsoft has spent the last 20 years trying
to replicate and improve upon of one of the great core features of X while
these Wayland people seem intent on abandoning it.

It comes off as a bad attempt to clone MacOS by people that have never
actually used MacOS nor ever worked in any sort of corporate computing
environment ever.

Wayland is certainly no X replacement.

[crankypuss]

On 01/11/2013 03:02 PM, JEDIDIAH wrote:
> On 2013-01-11, crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
>> On 01/11/2013 08:57 AM, J G Miller wrote:
>>> On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 03:24:16h -0700, Cranky Puss opined:
>>>
>>>> closest to the business end of the lowest-level abstraction likely to
>>>> stay put.
>>>
>>> Even X11 is under threat from the Wayland developers.
>>>
>>> <http://wayland.freedesktop.ORG/architecture.html>
>>>
>>
>> Didn't read it. Sticks and stones and threats etc. At the moment I'm
>> using ncurses. The abstraction I'm building is far from complete. Once
>> it is, I'll see where it might like to run.
>>
>
> It's a great irony that Microsoft has spent the last 20 years trying
> to replicate and improve upon of one of the great core features of X while
> these Wayland people seem intent on abandoning it.
>
> It comes off as a bad attempt to clone MacOS by people that have never
> actually used MacOS nor ever worked in any sort of corporate computing
> environment ever.
>
> Wayland is certainly no X replacement.
>

Optimizing the world for today's fads can bring future pain.

I get boggled every once in a while, hearing people preach the same old
sermon of Unix (and linux) being a comprehensive toolkit of simple
modular tools. I'm still looking for the simple modular stuff but
finding hundreds of little gizmos each tricked out like a Swiss Army Knife.

It'll all work itself out sooner or later. Most of us will probably be
long dead by the time it does. Suits me either way, I'm just sitting in
front of the fire whittling, in a manner of speaking.

Seems to me that people got too excited when pixels became the new
thing, they became the primary matrix on which characters were drawn,
everything measured in pixels. I think they did it backwards. People
don't make cardboard boxes based on how many marbles they'll hold, they
make cardboard boxes based on whatever they please and jam in as many
marbles as will fit.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 15:25:07h -0700, Cranky Puss complained:

> Seems to me that people got too excited when pixels became the new
> thing, they became the primary matrix on which characters were drawn,
> everything measured in pixels.

From <http://www.tomshardware.COM/news/linux-screen-lcd-torvalds-standard-resolution,18847.html>

QUOTE

Linus Torvalds: 2560x1600 Needs To Be Next Standard

2:00 PM - November 2, 2012

"So with even a $399 tablet doing 2560x1600 pixel displays,
can we please just make that the new standard laptop resolution?
Even at 11?"

He continued:

"The fact that laptops stagnated ten years ago (and even regressed,
in many cases) at around half that in both directions is just sad."


UNQUOTE


Meanhile consumer 4k ultra HD televisions have been unveiled at CES.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 14:59:27h -0700, Cranky Puss explained:

> There are lots of places I've never heard of;

I would venture to suggest that there are many more places which
exist than you or I have ever heard of.

But most people should surely be aware of capital cities, at
least on the continent on which they live.

Here is a little song to get you started --

<http://www.youtube.COM/watch?v=sNUDDaEOvuY>

> (a) Do vampires and zombies age

> and (b) do vampires and zombies exist?

Regardless of (b), clearly vampires do not fall into the category
of "living person".

But zombies do exist (as anybody who watches "The Walking Dead" [AMC] will
tell you) and they have an official web site which lists their discography at

<http://thezombies.NET/>

and you can see and hear them at

<http://www.youtube.COM/watch?v=nqnuI9K5ct4>

<http://www.youtube.COM/watch?v=f5IRI4oHKNU>

> "PHP development began in 1994 when the programmer Rasmus Lerdorf
> initially created a set of Perl scripts he called "Personal Home Page
> Tools" to maintain his personal homepage."

I would suggest that the most important line on that page is

"PHP is an open source server-side scripting language designed for
Web development to produce dynamic Web pages."

PHP is intended primarily for use with web servers in being better than
PERL cgi scripts in producing *web pages*, as indicated by its recursive name
"PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". The command line interface to PHP was not
available until release 4.3.0 of 2002-12-27.

[MrTallyman]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:05:07 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:

TRIPLE POSTING? Act like a total dumbfuck much, child?

[SoothSayer]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:09:15 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:

>
>

>Meanhile consumer 4k ultra HD televisions have been unveiled at CES.

And you are dumb enough to think that it will end up in computer
displays?

It is hard enough on all the processors involved for it to spit up 1080
arrays.

And you think we'll move to harder array sizes? Not any time soon.

I currently have a Samsung 2343 @ 2048 x 1152, and it did not get that
great a reception in the realm of PCs. The video cards handle it, but it
puts a pause in advanced gaming operations.

Hopefully you didn't triple post this one.

[crankypuss]

I think you mistook my meaning. The number of pixels available really
isn't very relevant. People have developed graphic display technology
to impute more meaning to fewer pixels via dithering or color-shading
and so forth. More pixels means a clearer image, certainly.

It's the choice between pixels and letters that I was addressing.
People have chosen pixels as the primary. Apple and Microsoft got
pixels between their teeth and ran with them. Instead of words, we have
pretty little pictures of dubious meaning. A graphic of a padlock
supposedly meaning "security", a graphic of a floppy disc meaning "save"
is what I'm seeing at the moment on ThunderBird.

It's computing for the illiterate. That's the thrust of it.

In earlier days, screens were measured in characters. The common
terminal size was 80 columns by 24 rows. Now we talk about sizes by
pixels. Letters are an afterthought. But they're still important, this
post you're reading is composed of letters.

Interfaces that let one draw on the screen are all about pixels. Pixels
are fine. Characters are more necessary. Being able to read the
characters shown is necessary too.

There are pixels and there are cells. Of course the fancyboys want
letters that span across cells, as I recall that's called kerning. The
end result is that everything has to be based on pixels. Pixels are
fine, they are just not the most important aspect of anything that has
letters shown on it.

The most important aspect of display is how big the letters are. The
difference between 12-pt type and 6-pt type is huge. The size of an
individual character should be the basic measurement, and the size of
the physical screen determines how many characters of that size will
fit. From *there* we should be going to pixels, which determine clarity
and so forth. Graphics are great, I love graphics, they're just not the
basic building block of computing. Assign a section of the
character-based screen to graphics... say 20x20 characters... and let
the pixels begin there, the clarity of the display defined by the pixel
resolution of the physical screen.

Having the screen look identical no matter how large or small it is,
that's the approach we've come round to because of the fixation on
pixels, and imo it's just plain wrong.

[crankypuss]

On 01/11/2013 04:38 PM, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 14:59:27h -0700, Cranky Puss explained:

>> "PHP development began in 1994 when the programmer Rasmus Lerdorf
>> initially created a set of Perl scripts he called "Personal Home Page
>> Tools" to maintain his personal homepage."
>
> I would suggest that the most important line on that page is
>
> "PHP is an open source server-side scripting language designed for
> Web development to produce dynamic Web pages."
>
> PHP is intended primarily for use with web servers in being better than
> PERL cgi scripts in producing *web pages*, as indicated by its recursive name
> "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". The command line interface to PHP was not
> available until release 4.3.0 of 2002-12-27.

It's unfortunate that most people are so compliant in their thinking
that they believe web pages are vastly different from command line
interfaces.

Web pages have uri's that contain arguments. CLI programs can display
things on the screen.

The two main differences between a "web application" and a "local
application" are in the area of input/output and security. A web app
uses html for its input/output stream, a local application uses qt or
gtk or kde or fuckever (maybe ncurses) for its input/output stream.
Once you get below the specifics of what is accepted as
command-arguments and what is displayed on the screen (if anything) and
what is received as interactive input, it's all the same: code, good
code or bad code, just code.

Every X Windows application is a remote application, just like a
web-app, only it uses a different protocol for communicating with the
user. Web-apps don't have to be remote, it's entirely possible to have
a web-app running locally and interfacing with the user via html pages.

The ideas of the web-app and the local-app can be brought together, it
doesn't involve any black magic, what it involves could be something
like an "embedded" application where a browser's rendering engine is
used as the i/o engine for local applications.

People get stuck in specifics. HTML has some advantages, it provides a
decent-looking output "page" by using a very generic definition. A
little tweaking here and there and we could have something useful for a
change.

Of course then knowing the eleventy-seven different arguments of the tar
command would become less of an ego-boost. So it goes. Enjoy your
cubbyholes, personally I find generality more interesting, but each to
his own.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 17:38:34h -0800, SoothSayer wrote:

> And you are dumb enough to think that it will end up in computer
> displays?
>
> It is hard enough on all the processors involved for it to spit
> up 1080 arrays.

And you are dumb enough not to realize that these TVs do not have
sufficient CPU and graphics acceleration to provide 4k display?

What resolution monitors do you think they have attached to their
workstation PCs at WETA?

Or that mere cellphones do not have enough processing power to
provide the 2560x1600 display on some of them?

> Hopefully you didn't triple post this one.

For the record: I have never intentionally tripled posted anything.
When a multiple posting occurs, it is due to some bug with Pan causing
it to retry posting because of a delay in acknowledgement back from
the news server.

[MrTallyman]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:27:58 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:

>

>For the record: I have never intentionally tripled posted anything.
>When a multiple posting occurs, it is due to some bug with Pan causing
>it to retry posting because of a delay in acknowledgement back from
>the news server.

OK. BECAUSE you use, AND CONTINUE to use a BROKEN news client that has
ALWAYS never FIXED this KNOWN problem, YOU ARE the culprit for CONTINUING
to use it. Or at least for not digging into the source to find the
problem YOU apparently state familiarity with.

FOR THE RECORD

Of course there will be a delay (or absence ) in your acknowledgement
of this fact.

[MrTallyman]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:27:58 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:

>On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 17:38:34h -0800, SoothSayer wrote:
>
>> And you are dumb enough to think that it will end up in computer
>> displays?
>>
>> It is hard enough on all the processors involved for it to spit
>> up 1080 arrays.
>
>And you are dumb enough not to realize that these TVs do not have
>sufficient CPU and graphics acceleration to provide 4k display?

That is what *I* said, idiot.

>
>What resolution monitors do you think they have attached to their
>workstation PCs at WETA?

You ain't real bright, are ya? Prepared content does not require
preprocess handling. Their PCs are mere control devices for the streams
they are pumping the displays with. They are not processing the frames.

[crankypuss]

It could be the news server, y'know. Or even a flakey connection.
Sometimes it's difficult/impossible to tell whether something has
actually been posted or not.

[Jonathan N. Little]

Quite a real possibility. eternal-september.org been flaky several times
in the last week or so for me...timeouts and too many connection incidents.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[MrTallyman]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:51:26 -0700, crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid>
wrote:

Then SAVE them locally and send the all at the end when you exit the
client.

Oh and I doubt your claims since it is not does not happen to others on
the same isp or using the same news client app.

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2013-01-12, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:
> On Friday, January 11th, 2013, at 17:38:34h -0800, SoothSayer wrote:
>
>> And you are dumb enough to think that it will end up in computer
>> displays?
>>
>> It is hard enough on all the processors involved for it to spit
>> up 1080 arrays.
>
> And you are dumb enough not to realize that these TVs do not have
> sufficient CPU and graphics acceleration to provide 4k display?
>
> What resolution monitors do you think they have attached to their
> workstation PCs at WETA?

...probably something that costs more than you would be willing
to spend for your ENTIRE PC. It has always been this way with
high end workstation cards.

[deletia]

--
...of course if you are forced against your will to use Windows in |||
the day time your bound to have a lot to vent about in the evening. / | \

[Jasen Betts]

On 2013-01-11, Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>
> GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
> lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
> functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
> That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
> find, et al.

that has nothing to do with turing colteteness,

as built-is it's got string manipultation, looping, tesing and conditional
branching, that's enought to implement a turing machine, therfore
it's Turing complete

--
⚂⚃ 100% natural

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---

[Jasen Betts]

On 2013-01-12, MrTallyman <MrTal...@BananaCountersRUs.org> wrote:

> OK. BECAUSE you use, AND CONTINUE to use a BROKEN news client that has
> ALWAYS never FIXED this KNOWN problem, YOU ARE the culprit for CONTINUING
> to use it. Or at least for not digging into the source to find the
> problem YOU apparently state familiarity with.

it should* even be fairly easy to fix

you say post
server says ok, here's a message-id if you don't already have one
you post using that message-id (or one you already have)

nothing happens - timeout

you say post
server says ok, here's a message-id if you don't already have one
you post using the same message-id you used in the first attempt.
server says i already got that one, you give up.

(*) doesn't mean it actually will be easy to fix.
the mail command in busybox breaks the second rule of smtp but due to a
design fault this is hard to fix.

--
⚂⚃ 100% natural

[crankypuss]

On 01/13/2013 08:58 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
> On 2013-01-11, Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
>> lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
>> functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
>> That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
>> find, et al.
>
> that has nothing to do with turing colteteness,
>
> as built-is it's got string manipultation, looping, tesing and conditional
> branching, that's enought to implement a turing machine, therfore
> it's Turing complete
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

not-the-same-as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting

Find someone who has written a compiler in bash, and if s/he isn't stuck
forever in a lunatic asylum I'd be interested in hearing more.

[Jasen Betts]

On 2013-01-14, crankypuss <noe...@noemail.invalid> wrote:
> On 01/13/2013 08:58 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
>> On 2013-01-11, Aragorn <str...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>> GNU Bash in itself is not Turing-complete, because even though it has
>>> lots of built-ins, the amount of built-ins does not fully cover the full
>>> functionality of a UNIX shell environment, nor was it meant to do so.
>>> That's why additional UNIX utilities exist, such as awk, grep, sed,
>>> find, et al.
>>
>> that has nothing to do with turing colteteness,
>>
>> as built-is it's got string manipultation, looping, tesing and conditional
>> branching, that's enought to implement a turing machine, therfore
>> it's Turing complete
>>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

which was what aragorn was discussing
bash is turing complete.



> not-the-same-as
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting

indeed, not the same, self hostig works best for compiled languages,
which bash and php are not.

> Find someone who has written a compiler in bash, and if s/he isn't stuck
> forever in a lunatic asylum I'd be interested in hearing more.

compiler for what? into what?

[crankypuss]

For a general-purpose language, into something that can be executed.

The whole point I was making about bash is that it's very limited and
clumsy and has been widely abused by those who want to implement
programs quickly and with minimal effort, sacrificing validity checking
for ease of implementation. For anything beyond minimal scripting,
validity checking and error recovery is often half the application or
more; that half is simply ignored so people can use bash.