On 2/7/02 at 1:54 PM, Charles Steinkuehler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would *REALLY* like to have a powerful scripting > language available by default for use on future LEAF > distributions (yes, shell scripting is powerful, it's just > lacking a bit in the data manipulation department). Since > I'd like for all distributions to include this scripting > language, and I want to continue supporting a single > floppy disk environment, the first big requirement is > small size. Ahh.... just up my alley - Languages!! > I'm currently looking at a lot of options, but lua, forth, > and rexx seem the most promising (yes, forth and rexx are > kind of dated, but the're still usable). Forth is NOT dated :P > Possibilities include: > > lua The Oxygen CDROMs have lua.lrp and luasockt.lrp - but luasockt.lrp appears to SegFault. > forth The CDROMS also have eforth - and maybe gforth. > scheme scsh.lrp is available, again on the CDROMs. > ruby Ruby is biggish - more like Perl - but wonderful nonetheless. > ??? I've also rc (the Plan 9 shell) and a few other languages, I think. Lua, Forth, rc are all small - Ruby and scsh are big. rc is about 90k; lua with all the trimmings (POSIX, Sockets...) is about 100k. Forth is somewhere about 40k I think but I've not looked at it recently. In contrast, scsh I vaguely remember being 200-300k, and Ruby about 400k. All of these packages should be available in Oxygen's package directory. > The intent would be to use the new scripting language to > implement several functions currently implemented as > binary programs, shell-scripts, or not implemented at all. > Examples would include: > > linuxrc boot script > packaging system > dhcp server/client > web server > ftp/http/tftp client for loading packages > menu-based configuration system > e-mail sending utility > ??? Trouble is, you still need /bin/sh - and one can do a lot in /bin/sh. If you switch script languages, you have to ADD a language in addition to /bin/sh. > Am I missing any major options, and does anyone have > strong thoughts about any of the options listed above? Lua is very nice, and rc is intriguing. rc could take some getting used to for a person with extensive /bin/sh experience - only because some things don't work the same. I think quoting is simpler. Lua is stripped down - to make a good standalone scripting language one needs to add things like the POSIX extensions. > Anyone worked with more than one of the above options and > have comparisons or comments? Should I axe forth as being > too anachronistic, or can people in the 21st century still > understand something so ancient? May I say that I disassembled an Apple II FORTH system and ported it from one operating system to another....? You might say I enjoy FORTH - and you'd be understating things :) While I'm talking of it - the Sparc machines use a FORTH boot, and FreeBSD was going to a FORTH boot system too. -- David Douthitt UNIX Systems Administrator HP-UX, Unixware, Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Leaf-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel