James Wilkinson wrote: >> I would suggest that the author or authors work out exactly how the >> program [system-config-printer] is meant to work, and document that, >> and preferably re-write the whole thing in python or perl, >> so that one can see exactly what it is trying to do. > > I think you *greatly* exaggerate the ability of Python to force > programmers to produce readable code. And as for Perl -- the comparison > between (some) Perl and line noise is very widely acknowledged. > > In any case, > [james@kendrick ~]$ file /usr/sbin/system-config-printer > /usr/sbin/system-config-printer: symbolic link to `printconf' > [james@kendrick ~]$ file /usr/sbin/printconf > /usr/sbin/printconf: python script text executable > > In other words, it already is Python. I see I have _two_ versions of system-config-printer on my laptop, in /usr/bin (which takes priority) and /usr/sbin : ----------------------------------- [tim@elizabeth ~]$ ls -ls `which system-config-printer` 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Aug 23 13:10 /usr/bin/system-config-printer -> consolehelper [tim@elizabeth ~]$ ls -ls /usr/sbin/system-config-printer 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Aug 23 13:10 /usr/sbin/system-config-printer -> printconf ----------------------------------- Both versions are supplied by the same (recent) system-config-printer rpm. Incidentally, I wasn't suggesting that programs written in Python or Perl are necessarily more readable than programs in C - I actually believe the opposite - but if a program is written in Python or Perl it is easier to trace what is happening, eg by inserting temporary print commands. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
