[indiana-discuss] scope

[Tim Bray]

On Aug 8, 2007, at 12:11 PM, Bruno Jargot wrote:

> I thought we're talking about making /bin/sh being ksh93, NOT bash
> Using bash would be the wrong direction. Indiana should make thinks
> BETTER than Linux.
>
> A few numbers:

This all feels a little surreal.  Remember, we're targeting developers.

1. the *n*x shell is *not* a competitive differentiator.  Nobody  
cares if a shell is "better".  Nobody.
2. shell performance is irrelevant.

The things that will make Indiana better in a way that developers  
will notice will be better/safer package management, better  
observability (dtrace), better data management (zfs), and so on.  For  
totally commoditized things like /bin/sh, the decision procedure  
should be:

1. Do a little research and find out what the highest proportion of  
target developers is used to
2. Choose that.

  -Tim