In-joke cataclysm, perhaps? (2,4)

[hirez]

I'm sure there's a medium-format joke somewhere that would involve me banging on about how all Americans bear collective responsibility for the crazed actions of a small number of so-called 'science fiction' authors, some of whom I'm sure can write as well as their literary peers. It would probably also include a section on the irresponsibility of opening bookshops where children might wander in and become exposed their unfortunate ideologies.

However, I'm buggered if I can get the words in the right order, so you'll just have to think up something along those lines for yourselves.

Puppet, right? Either have significant whitespace, like the bondage-and-discipline languages or terminate your lines with semicolons like a proper grown-up's system-writing language. Actually, fuck it; make it look more like Python and less like Ruby.

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but puppet configs are a DSL, so you don't need a richly-parsed thinger.

Also: have you played with cucumber-puppet? It is awesome and I love it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

have you played with cucumber-puppet

Is it appropriate to ask another man than on a public forum?

Declarative languages still frighten me a bit. They're a bit too in-the-beginning-was-the-word for me.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Declarative languages still frighten me a bit. They're a bit too in-the-beginning-was-the-word for me.

I've always thought of them as a nigh-perfect expression of laziness; "I want this thing to have been done, I want you to work out how to do it, and I don't want you to bother me with the details."

[hirez.livejournal.com]

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The longer answer is: Yes you bloody well do need a general-purpose language because unless you're Niklaus Wirth there'll be stuff to do that you've not considered, and going "Oh, well, in our environment that's not relevant you shouldn't do it that way." is frankly insulting and makes the 'designer' and his Rubylicker acolytes look like Enfield's Mr 'You didn't want to do that' and just because you have things called classes it doesn't mean you're an object-orienteer. In fact calling a thing a 'class' and not having it act like a bloody class is a silly bloody idea that will piss off the people who've actually done some coding.

Mind, it's less shit than the alternatives.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Sorry: unclear grammar on my part. What I meant to say was that the defining feature of a DSL is not what it brings, but what it takes away. Not that systems-management doesn't need more richness.

I hear that the next version of puppet will have some form of ordering, which is nice. (And the ability to downgrade packages, which is about time too.)

There's always chef, if puppet doesn't give you enough rope. :)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ye-es.

I think I really need to unload the whole piece about admin stuff that came to me while watching a montage sequence in 'The first of the few'. (More pipe-smoking and chaps, basically.)

2.6.x is less broken. The function of capitalisation within class definitions is still unclear. Puppet + Mcollective is probably a good thing. External datasets ditto. Package damagement is bearable for Beardian-based kit, but really does not work on anything else. (To be fair, that's because everything else is broken in some exciting way.)

Chef. Yes. When all you have is ruby, every problem is an excuse for wheel-reinvention and a borderline-sexist presentation.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

There's a pro-Scala rant waiting in there somewhere.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Actually I really crave the total B&D of enforced whitespace like python plus really strong typing. Ideally I'd like a language where you actually had to beg to cast between types and it deleted your source if you didn't get the indentation right.

[reddragdiva]

Wanted: gcc patch that implements "undefined behaviour" as "the compiler will leap out of the machine, beat the fucking shit out of you and cut your bollocks off with a bread knife." A training film or two of the last person this happened to should result in some amazingly careful coding.

[bluekieran.livejournal.com]

I think Hubbard killed that joke.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Good point.