altoid via Dng said on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 13:38:39 -0300

>On 22 Feb 2023 at 14:25, Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult wrote:
>
>> Or maybe he forgot that nvme isn't the only storage around ?
>Nope ...
>
>What Poettering forgot or probably never learned about (a distinct
>possibility) are the basic underpinnings of Unix/Linux philosophy.

Yes. In fact, in interviews he looks at Linux with scorn, and implies
that he's the person to bring Linux up to the wonderful level of
Windows and MacOS. He has stated he doesn't give a dam about Posix.

>
>Usually referred to as "do one thing and do it well".
>

And there's a reason for "do one thing and do it well". When each
component has one or a very few inputs, and one or a very few outputs,
and every input and output has a very thin interface, such components
are incredibly easy to connect together to make whatever is needed.
Such components are trivial to completely test in isolation so before
they're put together they're already known to be free of flaws. When
put together, such assemblies of simple components have clearly defined
test points for probing and injection, making troubleshooting very
straightforward.

For instance, on the process level, one can make most of a log analysis
program by piping together a few greps and awks to get rid of
extraneous stuff that would be very time consuming in, let's say, Perl,
and then format and total individual reports with a little
Perl/Python/Lua/Ruby/AWK with some sorts. If you're doing your reports
across a slow network, rsync can be included to record changes in the
logs each day so you're always working with the latest information,
without repeatedly downloading the same stuff over and over again.
Doing this in pure Python/Perl/Lua/Ruby/AWK or, heaven forbid C, would
be a huge, error prone project, probably with all sorts of hard to find
bugs. Unfortunately, people who don't regularly repair things are
clueless to the benefits of "do one thing and do it well."

Poettering gets his kicks not by producing robust software, but by
producing complex interlocking Chinese puzzles in C. He's
not the slightest bit interested in troubleshooting and repair (in
other words debugging), so debugging is left to others. The
interlocking puzzle nature of such software explains all
the WONTFIX designations in the systemd bug tracking system.


>If we go by his "achievements", it would seem he's clueless.

Poettering's crowning achievement is to serve as a useful idiot for
Redhat, IBM and Microsoft.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm