Re: Question about adding a tiny tool into GNU coreutils

[Bob Proulx]

C de-Avillez wrote:
> Daniel Borkmann wrote:
> > ..., I was wondering if it's really only a developer tool? Aren't
> > there enough programs out there that do not ever print their
> > errors correctly?  No question that this would be a bad style, but
> > nevertheless, it isn't rarely.

It would seem that the most correct place to apply energy to the
system would be to correct and improve the software that is causing
the need.  If it isn't printing a good error message then that is the
place to take action, at the earliest point in the process, not way
far downstream later.

> Indeed. I usually float between different customers, with different *IX
> brands -- of course, not all of them use coreutils, but that's life. Not
> all of them deploy PERL, or Python, or MySQL (which provides 'perror'
> for that).
> 
> But, if I could rely on all that deploy coreutils to have something like
> that it would make my life much more simpler.
> 
> Of course, it can still be a contrib-type of thing -- but it would be there.

Does it really belong in coreutils installed on every computer in the
known universe?  I don't think my GNU toaster needs it.  So I would
vote against putting it in coreutils.  It would be fine in a different
project package however.  This doesn't feel like a coreutils program.
More like a dev-utils program.

Bob