Re: Some suggestions about s6 and s6-rc

From: Laurent Bercot <ska-supervision_at_skarnet.org>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2015 18:29:04 +0200

On 20/09/2015 18:03, Steve Litt wrote:
> That's my point exactly. Unfamiliar with the tool, you read the docs,
> keep reading about "down" in two different contexts, get confused, and
> say "later days."

  You will not read about "down" in two different contexts in the docs.
If you had read the docs, you would know that. :-Þ


> And then there's this: What is to be gained by using the same filename
> in two different contexts? Other than some global search and replace,
> what would be the cost of changing "./down" to something more
> descriptive?

  I can't change "./down" (the empty down file in a service directory)
because it's daemontools legacy, and breaking compatibility has a cost.
  I don't want to change "down" (the name of a script in a oneshot
source definition) because it's a perfectly descriptive name for what
the script accomplishes, and in the s6-rc context, there won't be any
confusion.


> Earlier in this thread, you yourself said:
>> I agree that the name collision is confusing, and it is an annoyance.

  I did say that. The name collision is confusing in this mailing-list at
this time, because we're talking about s6-rc in a place where people do
not know about it yet, but do know about supervisors, where "down" has a
different meaning. When s6-rc is out and it's clear what kind of "down"
we are talking about, it will not matter anymore.


> Or how bout the poor daemontools familiar admin who's heard that s6-rc
> + s6 is the best and it's daemontools-inspired, so he goes in with a
> long-established understanding of "down" files and encounters this?

  You don't give Unix admins much credit, do you?

  My position is that people should know the tools they are using and
they should know what they are doing. I have always designed my
software with those people in mind; nothing infuriates me more than a
tool that assumes it knows better than I do, so I don't do clueless-
friendly. My working hypothesis is that the person who has heard of
supervision and is trying to work with s6-rc instead of snoozing in
front of a systemd/Windows GUI actually has brains and is able to use
them.

  If, after reading the doc (which will explain the difference; if I
haven't done it yet, I will definitely add a paragraph of documentation
about this), an admin is still unable to tell a service directory ./down
file from a oneshot definition down script, then this person has no
business working with init and rc systems. And that's really all there is
to it.


> Giving this file a better name is a couple days of thought and an hour
> of global search and replace. I think it's well worth it.

  Yes. I could name the files "start" and "stop" instead of "up" and
"down". And somewhere, there will be some utility that uses a "stop"
file with a different meaning (and damn, it's even the name of a
signal!) and you will come yelling that it's confusing. Tsss.


> OK, then I'm not correctly envisioning what s6-rc really is.

  There. Come back when s6-rc is out and you have read the doc, and
you will see there's really no reason to panic. It will be okay.
You'll certainly have some criticism towards s6-rc, and I'll be
very interested in hearing it, but the use of "down" won't be a
problem.

-- 
  Laurent
Received on Sun Sep 20 2015 - 16:29:04 UTC

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