On Thu 12 May 2016 at 08:36:44 PDT Hans Ginzel wrote:
On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 07:42:26AM -0700, Charlie Kester wrote:
Package systems are both a symptom and a cause of bloat. They only
exist because most software, along with its metastasizing dependencies,
is a pain in the ass to compile.
The correct solution isn't hiding those problems with a package
manager, but to avoid those dependencies and the bloat in
individual programs by following suckless principles in the first place.
Which concrete principle do you mean, please?
Sorry, perhaps my answer to this specific question wasn't clear in my
previous reply.
The concrete principles I had in mind when I wrote the above are two:
- For every program, try to minimize the software stack (the number and
size of the libraries it uses, whether directly or indirectly.)
- For every program or library, try to minimize its size and complexity.
Follow the Unix philosophy where each program does only one thing
(coherence) and does it well (elegance).
Personally, I would add one more, although I've never seen it explicitly
endorsed by the suckless community:
- Prefer commandline programs over TUIs, and TUIs over GUIs. (Graphics
applications are often the worst offenders when it comes to bloated
software stacks.)
