NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/comp/sources/wanted/3935

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From: [e-mail] (Bill Duncan)
Subject: Re: script to center text
Organization: TFMCS
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 04:20:52 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Lines: 72

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Graham Stoney) writes:
>[e-mail] (Andy Newman) writes:
>>[e-mail] (Graham Stoney) writes:
>>>
>>>Bill, perhaps you have a different definition of "size" to most of us?.
>>>
>
>>Yes. He may be thinking about resource usage by the process not by how
>>many lines of source make up the program. How big is the Perl interpreter?
>
>This was already covered earlier in the thread; It was Tom who brought up the
>topic of size, and he was quite clearly referring to program size:
>
>Tom Christiansen <[e-mail]> writes:
>>But for size and convenience, Perl clearly wins over C.
>
>>You really have to compare the size of the perl program with the size of
>>the C program.
>
>You may think otherwise if you wish, but the Perl program will still have a
>smaller size than the C program.
>
>Graham
>--
>Graham Stoney                    | "a Perl script is correct if it's halfway
>Flip Dibner fan club, "Hi Flip!" |  readable and gets the job done before your
>Ph: [phone]  Fax: -2929   |  boss fires you." L. Wall & R. Schwartz

Unfortunately, it seems my feed has been eating parts of this thread, as I've
missed some of these comments.

My "idea of size" is *also* weighed against the time to develop/write/maintain
a piece of code.  If you are going to write a one liner and then forget it,
then by all means, use whatever means at your disposal and that you feel
comfortable with.

But as I've said in my earlier posting:  don't forget that we *are* talking
about centering a single line of text, which is relatively trivial in almost
any language.  (Well, there are exceptions.. ;-)

What I am getting at, is some of the fundamental design philosophy as
embodied in several books by people who were closely tied with the design
of Unix itself.  Keep the tools simple, do one thing well, and design with
re-usability in mind.

Using a several hundred kilobyte program to centre a single line of text,
seems like a bit of an overkill to me.  And it sounds like it comes from
people who grew up in the "me-too" generation, with complete disregard as
to what their actions might do to other users on the system.  (If they
need this big a sledge hammer to centre a line of text, what will they
need when they come across a "real-problem"?)

My simple program (which as someone pointed out, grew to over 20 lines),
probably took less energy to write, (and fewer lines), than many of
the responses defending Perl for this.  My program compiles to 6K.
(Yes, that was Six Kilobytes.)  I know that re-using this simple utility
will never be a drain on any system, and would feel a bit more comfortable
including this in any shell scripts I might do.

I also use any of the standard tools which can be found on most Unix systems
whenever "they" are appropriate.  If I was going to do something like this
once, and then never again need it, then I might use something like Perl
if I was in a hurry.  (I might even write it as a shell function.)

If I had a few extra minutes to think about it though, I might want to re-use
it and write the 20 odd lines which I did.  It might come in handy again
sometime.

Regards,

Bill Duncan ([e-mail] -or- ..robohack!ve3ied!bduncan)