[HECnet] PyDECnet setup

[Dave McGuire]

On 11/18/21 11:57 AM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
> Yes, I'm aware of that particular practice, yet one hesitates to call it 
> a 'standard'.

   I don't.  I've been doing it (and implementing it) for 35 years!

> That being said, I don't think it unreasonable to use 
> SIGHUP for something that is never going to have carrier dropped on it.  
> So background 'systems' processes would be an obvious candidate.

   I think that's in line with the early thinking, yes.

> 'Early' Unix to me means before it got ported off the PDP-7.  I started 
> using it in about 1978, which I believe was in the first decade of its 
> public release from AT&T.  In some ways, it was a significantly 
> different beast than what you see, today. However, I didn't start doing 
> systems programming on Unix until about 1985 when the plug got pulled on 
> 36 bits, first Ultrix, then Sun.  This was until about 1988.  Maybe we 
> might call that 'middle' Unix?

   Perhaps.  I started with SVr2 (AT&T 3B1). (then Ultrix, then Sun, 
like you, now Linux and SmartOS)

> Being a 'purist' in Unix is really a pointless exercise.  Vendors and 
> developers agree on things until they don't agree and when they need 
> something, it's anybody's guess as to what might get made into an 
> unofficial standard.  You'd be surprised (or not).

   Not.  In the UNIX world, as you've no doubt observed, things tend to 
coalesce into common usage patterns (like SIGHUP to reconfigure a 
running process) over time, mostly due to public conversations (Usenet, 
mailing lists, web fora) creating expectations, and vendors and 
development groups slowly adapting to them.

> I'm not saying it's a bad idea.  I'm saying a Unix 'standard' is 
> whatever an unofficial majority thinks it is, which may or may not be 
> what others think (say POSIX, for example).  You also see a lot of this 
> in the C library.  Timing functions come to mind.

   Yes, that's pretty much what I said above.  I think of those as 
"organic standards", for the lack of a better term, but I think the term 
fits.  It sure beats the design-by-committee garbage that gets foisted 
upon us every so often.

> It's a slippery term and what you think is a standard today may not be 
> in a decade or two.

   Right, common usage evolves, like everything else.  This is a good 
thing, not a bad thing.  Unless, of course, something gets changed for 
the sake of changing it, by kids who think everything needs to be 
"FRESH!", i.e., different from established expectations and accepted 
methodologies. (systemd comes to mind)

             -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA