rsc9      before we get into deeper things, could someone tell
         me why native awk matters at all?

uriel     rsc9: because non-native awk sucks
         rsc9: I'm trying to do shell redirection from system(),
         and it's just anoying as hell

newsham   hey russ, I have a question for you about 9p/auth.
         when you read the protocol from the remote I get "p9sk1@domain\0",
         but it seems kenfs returns "v.2 p9sk1@..." . What does
         that mean? Is this part of the negotiation documented
         somewhere?

Major-Wi  yeah, like system() uses ksh

uriel     rsc9: it just doesn't work as expected

rsc9      so system() uses ksh. any other problems?

Major-Wi  i thought the plan 9 shell was rc?

uriel     rsc9: return codes for system are also weird

rsc9      "it just doesn't work as expected" isn't very specific.
         okay, so system() is different. other things?

Major-Wi  exits

uriel     rsc9: using ksh to run stuff from awk in Plan 9 is
         not what anyone would expect(and again, I haven't managed
         to get even that to work properly... but maybe I was
         doing something wrong)
         Major-Willard: yes, exits is another one

rsc9      okay, system and exits. more?

noselasd  I think it boils down to people not liking APE. On
         the other hand , it's easy to keep in sync with bwks
         AWK :-)

uriel     rsc9: I think I had another one, but now I forgot :)

Major-Wi  it's not native

newsham   if you used rc instead of ksh to run system(..) wouldnt
         that require more work when porting non p9 code?

uriel     newsham: if I want loonix I know where to find it

newsham   uriel: system() is from unix, no?

Major-Wi  well, on 9 you'd assume rc

uriel     newsham: awk is not just part of ape, awk is a fundamental
         tool of the system and should work as part of the system

Major-Wi  yeah

rsc9      e already change little pieces of awk rather than use
         bwk's distribution as is. utf handling is one area.
         i'm happy to hear that we should use our own system()
         and exit() too.

uriel     newsham: no, in awk you really need to get into the
         shell to do many things, specially in "real" awk that
         is rather limited in functionality(and I like it that
         way)

uriel     rsc9: I think I had some nasty problem with something
         else, but I'm sorry I forgot what it was, I will let
         you know when I remember... :/

rsc9      detailing specific things are just way better than
         "i made a native awk; let's use it".
         otherwise we end up in the cadt model of system development.

uriel     rsc9: ok, I agree

Major-Wi  i believe it should ALL be native

uriel     rsc9: I was just a bit frustrated as my understanding
         is that awk was treated more as a "unix backwards compat"
         thing rather than a first class Plan 9 member

Major-Wi  is this lunix or 9?

rsc9      awk is a kind of middle ground.

uriel     Major-Willard: well, maybe we can get there some time,
         let's start with somethin and we will see where we
         get
         rsc9: yes, I guess it has a bit of a dual role

rsc9      boyd, you can be a purist all you want, but once you
         port gs for the 100th time because they released a
         new version, you get tired of it.

Major-Wi  awk? doesn't that get used to mk the kernel?

uriel     rsc9: still, i feel that there is no substitute for
         it in Plan 9 world, but then I think Rob never was
         a big awk fan, right? :)

rsc9      awk is a plan 9 utility as much as sed is. most of
         our awk programs don't use system() so that particular
         part isn't as well done. but bwk's awk doesn't do utf
         and the plan 9 one does. so there are accomodations.
         okay, enough of awk.

musasabi  Making more changes than necessary just makes updating
         ports more pain - and that time could most probably
         be spent on something better.

rsc9      musasabi: exactly.
         jmk is not writing a new installer. as far as i know,
         no one is.

uriel     still, awk is not such a big deal, specially if the
         issues with calling external commands from it and exits
         are fixed; I was just a bit frustrated the other day
         trying to get my awk code to work, so I'm sorry if
         I made so much fuss about it

Major-Wi  rsc9: ken called me 'an enthusiast'

uriel     rsc9: yes, that has been cleaned up, still _someone_
         somehow came up with the idea that he was...
         (thru some email that no one else has seen)
         Major-Willard: I think that quite deffines you :)

rsc9      well don't blame me for that. if you can track it down,
         great, but he's not.

uriel     rsc9: I don't blame anyone, and I'm sorry if it seemed
         like it, I just think that if the process was a bit
         more transparent that kind of misunderstandings would
         not happen

musasabi  What I think would be quite nice would be an easy way
         to follow plan9 development - what is changed where
         and why.

rsc9      this is really what i wanted to talk about.

uriel     yes :)

Major-Wi  uriel: i'd pissed off some guy at USG and he asked
         ken WTF?

rsc9      as far as following what has happened, /dist/replica/plan9.log
         is a great start.

noselasd  Well, if someone thought someone was writing a new
         installer, all it'd take was a post to 9fans :-)

newsham   uriel: uh, you're suggesting that no one do work without
         first declaring that they're starting?

uriel     I got a list of items I would like to see happening
         in the Plan 9 dev community :)

rsc9      boyd: and ken said "he pisses everyone off; don't worry
         about it."
         (actually i have no idea)

uriel     newsham: no
         newsham: but it's hard for people that comes new to
         know what is going on, or what is the dev model
         who is in charge, and so on, patch is great, but it's
         not clear who/when/what use it
         it's no clear who decides if a patch goes in or not(it's
         clear for us, but not for someone coming from outside
         that has not follwed things for quite some time)

newsham   uriel: I dont find it any better or worse than other
         projects (eg. cygwin or freebsd)

rsc9      to the extent that anyone is in charge, it's the people
         who work for bell labs. but mainly it feels like more
         of a collaboration.

uriel     that has some advantages, of course, as sets a barrier
         of entry, but I think right now that barrier is a bit
         too arbitrary

rsc9      jmk and i are the ones who apply patches.

newsham   in most projects an "outsider" would come up with a
         patch, send it to the person they think is most appropriate
         and either they would add the patch or not.

Major-Wi  ACTION thinks an applied patch should (auto) mail
         9fans

uriel     Major-Willard: not 9fans, but we need a commits list,
         I'm going to hack it up soon

rsc9      how about an applied patch appends an entry to a log
         on sources.

uriel     rsc9: it's easy to patch those things on top of patch,
         but not all changes go thru patch

newsham   uriel: see /n/sources/patch/applied

__20h__   Boyd, you never joined the NetBSD-cvs ML.

uriel     newsham: I know, as I said, I'm going to write an script
         that generates emails from that

rsc9      patch/list applied

musasabi  rsc9: what do you mean by /dist/replica/plan9.log -
         I can only find /dist/replica/client/plan9.log which
         is not very helpful.. (sorry for the stupid question)

rsc9      musasabi: that's what i meant.

uriel     rsc9: that is not an issue, as I said, it works great,
         the only problem is that not all chagnes go thru patch

rsc9      but all changes do go into the plan9.log. if you look
         at the changes and can't tell why they were made, then
         it's fine to ask on 9fans.

mjl-      musasabi: you can track all file changes with it, just
         not the description

uriel     rsc9: it would be nice if there was a single path,
         and the comments are really helpful, not everyone wants
         to look thru all diffs...
         rsc9: also it's nice to see who did the changes, to
         maybe comment/ask that person... but maybe that can
         be done with sources now...

rsc9      comments just aren't going to happen. i thought about
         it for a while, but it's not the way the plan 9 guys
         at bell labs work.
         someone familiar with the source could certainly read
         the diffs and maintain a changelog. uriel?

uriel     rsc9: hehehe..
         rsc9: well, then I guess I will try to hack something
         that picks up the things from sources...

noselasd  I would be *mad* if I had to add comment to every thing
         I change in projects at work..

rsc9      the fact of the matter is that if you care about why
         things were changed, then you're already reading the
         source.

newsham   is it really needed though?

uriel     rsc9: but it woud be nice to at least know who did
         the change, I will look if that can be get from sources

rsc9      ls -lm will show you who pushed it out to sources.

noselasd  So I actually understand adding comments may not be
         "doable" :.-)

uriel     rsc9: not everyone does, I know many people that follows
         the commits lists of various projets, and they don't
         reall all the src, they just read mostly the comments
         to know what is going on
         (ask Oksel)

__20h__   Comments? I don't even add such things into the code.

mjl-      i'm oksel, but under plan9

rsc9      so fine, then maybe someone maintaining a changelog
         would be a good contribution, but it won't be any of
         us.

newsham   uriel: so if you read through the patch/applied and
         miss out on 5 or 10% of the additions, are you missing
         that much?

uriel     __20h__: code should be slef documenting, changes are
         different

mjl-      anyway, users could easily make commit logs

rsc9      the bulk of the changes come from patch anyway.

musasabi  Usually when following a typical open source project
         I just subscribe to the cvs list and get mails about
         commits and look at the diff if the message indicates
         it is something interesting. Of course one can allways
         diff but that is not very nice to look "is this something
         interesting".

mjl-      once a simple mechanisme to comment on changes has
         been mae

newsham   if you're actively modifying code, you'll notice if
         there's a replica/pull that affects code you're working
         on and you'll know the code enough to dif
         if you're just trying to get a feel for "whats going
         on", its probably not that important if you miss an
         item or two

rsc9      okay, i think we've beat this changelog thing into
         the ground.

mjl-      yups

noselasd  musasabi: But what is the usefulness of that ? It's
         "nice to know" bot imo not significant..

rsc9      i'd be happy to have someone maintain a changelog on
         the side and email us if they want to know more about
         a change that wasn't done through patch.

uriel     noselasd9: it's more significant for people that are
         just starting to get into the system

rsc9      switching to patch acceptance criteria (and feel free
         to add this to the wiki).
         jmk or i apply patches. acceptance criteria aren't
         well-defined, but basically i want to see:

uriel     rsc9: yes, documenting that a bit would be very nice

rsc9      1. an explanation of what the problem is

noselasd  uriel: Ok - thatks a point.

rsc9      2. a minimal set of fixes, with no gratuitous changes
         3. the new code has to look like (style-wise) the old
         code
         4. if the external behavior changes, document the change

m4dh4tt3  #2 meaning to include no whitespace or formatting changes,
         yes?

rsc9      #2 yes.

m4dh4tt3  that makes sense
         most other projects i know of have the same requirements

rsc9      if i get patches that don't do those 4, then sometimes
         i sorry them
         with a note explaining what i'd like to see in a future
         patch.

musasabi  as a sidenote would patches adding commentation to
         existing code be welcome?

m4dh4tt3  gratuitous changes of that nature make it more difficult
         for the reviewer to actually review the code

uriel     yes, sounds very reasonable, just what we needed

rsc9      but most of the time i just bring the patch up to snuff
         myself, noting what i did, and then apply it.

uriel     rsc9: do you want to make a wiki page about "how to
         contribute"? or should someone else(me?) do it based
         on what you said here?

rsc9      o for example i edit almost all the man page changes
         that get submitted for english and man page conventions.
         i haven't edited the wiki in years. i'd prefer someone
         else do it.

uriel     rsc9: ok, I will do

rsc9      my first letters of sentences are occasionally getting
         chopped off due to an acme irc bug. y'all will have
         to cope. ;-)

uriel     heh, you should try irc7, seems very popular this days
         :)

Major-Wi  ACTION agrees with that despite #3, but learnt the
         necessity for #3 while hacking the 7th Ed sh

m4dh4tt3  thanks, uriel. i was going to jump in, but i don't
         have a drawterm open ATM

Major-Wi  yo m4

rsc9      if you create a patch and then use patch/email to give
         us your email address, you get email notification when
         the patch is applied/sorried.

__20h__   Irc7 only supports one channel.

m4dh4tt3  rsc9: i think we can interpolate ;-)

rsc9      any other patch questions?

Major-Wi  deletions?

uriel     rsc9: "saved"?

m4dh4tt3  rsc9: thanks for providing those guidelines for the
         community. from the patches i've submitted in the past
         (before patch), i pretty much gathered all that, but
         it's good for the rest of the community to know.

newsham   20h: irc7 is f2f's server/client? if so, you can open
         multiple windows in different channels, and you can
         still use multiple channels in one window if you dont
         bind the window to a channel

rsc9      patch/note saved/whatever-is-there will tell you about
         saved.

uriel     rsc9: seems a bit weird and redundant, just reject
         it and sugest put into sources dir

rsc9      saved is for things that aren't going in just because
         they don't fit in/feel like plan 9.

uriel     rsc9: yes, but then why wasn't rio-bg saved? ;P

rsc9      sorry is for things that have been rejected. the intent
         is to clean up applied and sorry once in a while so
         they don't grow without bound.

newsham   btw, does patch/create work in acme? the first tiem
         I tried it in acme I had issues but I dont know if
         it was just the long delay that threw me off or the
         bits that make it put the rio window into editing mode
         (its been too long for me to recall exactly)

musasabi  A simple "how to contribute a patch" example could
         be nice in the wiki.

uriel     rsc9: my point is, why not just let people maintain
         external patches in their own dirs...

rsc9      i actually thought rio-bg was the one i saved. i was
         surprised earlier today when i noticed i hadn't.

newsham   musa: there's an example in the man page, no?

rsc9      patch/create assumes it can turn on hold mode. it probably
         doesn't work well in win windows.

uriel     rsc9: if the sources "private" dirs are organized a
         bit better, I think that would be a much better place
         for things that are not ready, or don't even fit into
         the main distribution, but that some people might like
         to keep around

newsham   that would be good to note in the wiki too. (and maybe
         the man page)

uriel     yup, I have in my TODO list looking over patch/*; it
         could use some polishing
         BUGS? :)

Major-Wi  deletions

uriel     but should be easy to fix, I hope..

rsc9      boyd: fix deletions and i'll apply the patch.

uriel     what is "deletions"? sorry, I missed that

__20h__   Patch doesn't support the deletion of files.

uriel     ah, I see, yes

musasabi  newsham: that does not say anything about adding/removing
         files (or directories)

mjl-      patching files into existence works

rsc9      deletions are not very common so i'm not very worried.
         adding files does work.
         i moved some stuff into patch/save
         saved
         any other patch complaints?

uriel     rsc9: I think nothing significant... I would say that
         still would be nice if the labs would use it, even
         without comments, but well..

musasabi  an email notification to a list when something happens
         could be nice, but by no means very important.

__20h__   What if I want to patch a saved patch?

uriel     (maybe a way to just have it apply automatically pathces
         if you have the right perms
         musasabi: I will do that

__20h__   There's an typo in the rio-background.

musasabi  uriel: thanks.

rsc9      it can't automatically apply patches because of the
         way we keep our internal source tree in sync with sources.

uriel     musasabi: the only thing is that with the current system
         I have to make something that checks both sources/replica
         and patch... which is a bit anoying as they look qutie
         different

Major-Wi  nah auto-application is a bad idea

rsc9      patching saved patches doesn't seem lke a very common
         case.
         you don't need the check patch. patch is for things
         pending on sources.

newsham   so the patch/email thing causes automatic notification?
         What about mailing a mailing list as well? That might
         be useful.

uriel     rsc9: one thing, what about keeping public the list
         of changes from your private tree to the public one?
         (if that is possible)

rsc9      what do you mean?

Major-Wi  like i said, mail 9fans

rsc9      mailing 9fans will drive away all the people who don't
         care.

newsham   major: i dont think everything should go to 9fans

uriel     rsc9: jmk mentioned in his email that you guys get
         an email every day with all the files that are different
         in the distro and in your local tree.

rsc9      e're talking pretty trivial stuff a lot of the time.

newsham   but creating a new mailing list (ie. googlegroups.com)
         is really easy these days

Major-Wi  look we have 250 patches

__20h__   Not googlegroups.com.

uriel     rsc9: yes, but it's small things that make the whole
         dev model ;)

Major-Wi  that"s zip compared to the spam and other crapa

__20h__   Google is the commercial NSA of the future.

uriel     __20h__: I'm sure nashi can setup some lists in mordor

rsc9      i don't want to make that list public. if we want the
         change to go out, we'll push the file. seeing the file
         list doesn't strike me as very interesting.

Major-Wi  __20h__: :)

newsham   20h: and patch/applied info is sensitive because?

rsc9      i'd be happy to append the mails to a mailbox file
         on sources. if people want to watch it and generate
         auto emails from it then fine.

uriel     rsc9: ok, I jsut thought it was interesting if someone
         was working on something that had pending changes or
         something, but well
         newsham: good question
         rsc9: sounds like a cool idea

rsc9      uriel: that's not the way that list works. if something
         has changed in our main tree, it almost always goes
         out. people working on little projects keep it in their
         own home directories for the most part.
         the bulk of the files are config.

__20h__   newsham, it's like who cares about privacy, because
         they knew already everything?

rsc9      the only two things sitting in the tree that are major
         are software cursor support (waiting to finish vbe)
         and usb storage (from /n/sources/rmiller, and he asked
         us not to put it in the tree yet)

uriel     rsc9: I see, that makes sense, then it would be nice
         what interesting work might be lurking in the corners
         of home dirs, but I guess that is harder ;)

rsc9      that's things sitting in our internal tree that aren't
         on sources.

newsham   20h: i'm not sure what the issue would be with the
         nsa (or any other govt organization) seeing any public
         mailing list. its a public list.

Major-Wi  deletions? how about the 0 mode 0 size file?

uriel     rsc9: there is people outside the labs working in vbe(I
         guess you know alreay)...

__20h__   newsham, it's about Google -- but that's not the discussion.

uriel     rsc9: and I know some people interested in hacking
         usb storage

rsc9      i saw some comment about andrey having special access
         to insider info in the logs. that's not really true.
         we'll talk to anyone who emails us. it's just that
         a lot of people seem content to speculate on irc instead
         of dashing off an email.

newsham   irc rumors are more enticing than reality.

musasabi  rsc9: well most newbies don't know who to send the
         email ;)

rsc9      they handed the vbe code to me to put into the tree,
         and i'm still integrating it. i'm working on putting
         it in aux/vga instead of 9load. if someone wants to
         help, feel free to email me.

uriel     rsc9: ok, sorry, that is my fault, but well, one doesn't
         want to bother you guys too much with obvious questions...

rsc9      musasabi: then it's up to you old-time irc hands to
         point them in the right direction. or you email us
         instead.

uriel     rsc9: if a contact point was documented somewhere it
         would be nice, can we put your email in the wiki as
         "contact point"(maybe better 9fans)... which brings
         us to plan9-dev list...

rsc9      uriel: people who want to hack usb storage can look
         in /n/sources/miller and then contact richard with
         changes. he's heading that up.

uriel     I understand that some people don't feel confortable
         discusing serious stuff in 9fans due to all the noise,
         but it seems that plan9-dev failed...

rsc9      boyd: treating deletions as size 0 files (no need for
         mode 0) sounds fine to me.

Major-Wi  well, i like overkill

uriel     rsc9: do you think a low-noise forum is needed for
         dev discusion?

rsc9      i'm glad plan9-dev failed. i don't like the dichotomy.
         i refused to subscribe for quite a while, although
         i wish i'd been there to help with designing 9p2000.u.
         i think 9fans is a fine place for dev discussion. it
         happens occasionally.

Major-Wi  and it saw your can't read it and there's nothing in
         it
         it says

uriel     rsc9: ok, I see, I guess people will have to put up
         with 9fans then, the problem I see is that lots of
         disucion seems to happen in private email instead..
         :/
         which leaves most people out of the loop

rsc9      mode 0 files are a pain because you can't even open
         them.

Major-Wi  and /n/sources? how does one get a dir?

uriel     Major-Willard: I was going to get there next

rsc9      that will happen on a dev-only list too. the only reason
         to have a dev-only list is that people on 9fans don't
         want to see the dev chatter, which i very much doubt.

uriel     ;)

musasabi  btw would making a common readline function (basically
         the readln function which is copy/pasted in many places
         make sense? (just found myself copying the code and
         I could submit a patch if such a thing would be wanted
         and I knew the correct lib for it)

uriel     rsc9: I thought it was the other way around, people
         interested in dev wasn't interesed in 9fans noise,
         so they used priv email instead,,, I guess I was wrong
         again :)

noselasd  9fans doesn't seem to be the most overloaded list.
         Dev discussion there would fit fine, no ?

Major-Wi  READLINE? are you MAD?

rsc9      plan9-dev got created because of the ridiculous amounts
         in spam back in july. that's solved.

uriel     musasabi: over my dead body
+quintile

__20h__   Boyd, there's no GNU inside. ;)

musasabi  Major-Willard: not *nix readline.

rsc9      you don't need readline unless you want to read a password.

uriel     rsc9: good, then that is solved

rsc9      if you're reading from a console, read() returns one
         line at a time.

noselasd  musasabi: mouse around :-)

Major-Wi  i don't need readline() i have hold mode

uriel     rsc9: souces dirs..
         rsc9: I documented in the wiki that to get a sources
         dir one should email you or rsc(I hope you don't mind
         :))

rsc9      the usual thing with sources dirs is to mail me or
         jmk and we'll create it. boyd is an exception.

uriel     rsc9: the thing is that there is no criteria to who
         gets one dir and who dosn't
         rsc9: that dosn't seem fair to me

musasabi  rsc9: but I don't want to assume stdin is a console
         - and the existing code seems read one char at a time
         till it gets to the end of the line..

uriel     (actually it seems plain stupid to me0

rsc9      jmk wasn't feeling very kind when boyd asked.

uriel     rsc9: well, are you feeling more kind today? :)

Major-Wi  rsc9: should be a fortune "<rsc9> the usual thing with
         sources dirs is to mail me or jmk and we'll create
         it. boyd is an exception."

rsc9      ;-)
         i'll make boyd a directory but first i want to put
         all the directories in a subdirectory
         instead of the root.

uriel     I personally would be upset if someone that has done
         so much for Plan 9 was left out, I think it's just
         _wrong_; boyd might be a difficult person, but that
         is no excuse not to let him contribute

rsc9      choices for names? /n/sources/users/foo? /n/sources/userstuff/foo?

uriel     rsc9: contrib?

rsc9      i'm not getting into a discussion about boyd.

Major-Wi  usr

rsc9      there's already a contrib.
         usr is home directories which these aren't.

__20h__   home :P

Major-Wi  they sort of are

rsc9      contrib is good.

uriel     rsc9: yes, that needs to be cleaned up a bit, there
         is "contrib", "extras" "cvs", ... and so on, quite
         messy..

mjl-      there already is a contrib... yeah

quintile  community ?

Major-Wi  no

uriel     quintile: too long :)

Major-Wi  contrib

musasabi  users and contrib sound nice.

Major-Wi  or wip

uriel     vt3 and I volunter to keep an index of the stuff in
         contrib then

rsc9      great.

uriel     rsc9: some guidelines for how to use sources dirs,
         similar to the ones you gave for patch would be very
         apreciated
         (mostly to keep some order)

__20h__   What's the 9grid dir for?

uriel     (and I guess somethign like http://plan9.bell-labs.com/9grid/AUP.html
         can be linked from the wiki)
         __20h__: good question

noselasd  Ick. did irc7 swallow a line of mine :-

uriel     (and links into my next question, that is what is up
         with *.grid.bell-labs.com.)

rsc9      i don't know anything about grid. ask andrey.

__20h__   Ok.

rsc9      okay, i created stuff in /n/sources/contrib. please
         move your fiels.

uriel     rsc9: what about *.grid.bell-labs.com then? quintile
         said it's still up and running, but there is no way
         to get new accounts?

rsc9      i don't know anything about grid. ask andrey.
         i believe new accounts only go to people contributing
         resources. but i know nothing. it's presotto and ron's
         baby, and it's mostly stalled.

uriel     ok, will do then, I thought he didn't know as he was
         around when it was discused
         well, I was asking because all the other 9grid.??-s
         poping up over the wrold..

rsc9      i don't know anything.

uriel     OK, I will nag f2f when he is back :)
         rsc9: about p9p and merging the docs..

rsc9      about sources/contrib, it's for posting software for
         plan 9 users. if you use up too much disk or post crap
         we'll probably do something.

uriel     Oksel: and I ahve looked at it, and it looks nasty..
         the changes are too many and too hard to check which
         ones should go and with ones are p9p specific..

m4dh4tt3  rsc9: the perms on my dir in contrib are incorrect
         :-)

rsc9      fixed

m4dh4tt3  thx

Major-Wi  methinks one dir is missing

uriel     my proposal is to merge both documentation, and have
         an extra section for p9p specific pages, and an extra
         section inside pages that are different documenting
         the diferences for p9p

rsc9      no.

uriel     rsc9: ok, but I tell you, merging back and forth is
         unpractical..

rsc9      i don't want p9p to pollute the main distribution.
         changes aren't frequent enough to merit that.

uriel     I think that you will find it harder and harder to
         keep them in sync...

rsc9      if we can get them in sync to start, then keeping them
         in sync is easy.

uriel     well, if people wants to start working on the Plan
         9 docs, how will you merge back? it goes both ways..
         rsc9: it's hard for people that might have access to
         one but not the other

rsc9      i know when the last time i merged was, and occasionally
         i run diff to see what's happened on sources in the
         last (say) 3 months and then do it that way.
         everyone has access to the dump on sources and to the
         cvs history for p9p. both let you diff by date.
         the trick is getting them up to date.
         that is, in sync the first time.
         regardless of what solution we decide on going forward,
         that initial work needs to happen.

uriel     rsc9: ok, we will try, but seems like a tedious and
         futile task from our POV..

rsc9      i don't see why it's hard to figure out, given some
         diffs, whether they apply to plan 9.
         the way i see it is this.
         the goal is to bring the plan 9 man pages up to date.
         i already identified some places
         where they were out of date and fixed it in p9p when
         i did the initial p9p man pages.
         diffing p9p and plan 9 man pages just points out some
         places where you need to update the plan 9 pages.
         i'm not saying you should diff the pages that have
         changed dramatically, like intro(1)

uriel     yes, but some times it's hard to tell..

mjl-      i've only looked at acid, and it's a bit of a problem
         that i've never used it beyond lstk()
         so a bit hard to know what applies to both now

uriel     you have to actually look thru the diff to see which
         changes are p9p only and which are p9...

mjl-      since i also don't use the p9p version

rsc9      acid is a tough one. i'd skip acid.

mjl-      guess that's a problem of too little experience...
         ok
         will look further then. already have some scripts that
         show diffs btw (if anyone wants them)

rsc9      if you diff all the pages and make a big file with
         all the diffs, you should be able to pick out the easy
         ones.
         once you do the easy ones, feel free to email me to
         ask about the hard ones.

uriel     rsc9: another advantage of keeping a single copy of
         the docs is that the implementation differences are
         clearly documented somewhere, that way they can be
         keept track of, and hopefully be reduced to a minimun
         over time

rsc9      i agree with you in principle. eventually i'll probably
         use cvs branches so that the p9p cvs is essentially
         keeping track of the diffs between the two.
         of course, it's naive to believe that all the implementation
         differences expose themselves in documentation.

uriel     ACTION would recomend using something other than cvs
         to keep track of branches, but that is a detail ;)
         rsc9: yes, but it's better to try to keep track of
         them than just ignore them

newsham   whats wrong with cvs branches?

__20h__   dho did some sort of new "cvs" -- no code yet.

rsc9      let's not talk about version control. more cadt crap.

uriel     newsham: merging patches back and forth from on branch
         to another is quite nasty
         rsc9: yes :)

rsc9      i'm not a power user so cvs is fine. and i know how
         to use it, crappy though it is.

mjl-      rsc9: that's what i was trying with acid too (looking
         into the code)

newsham   <- likes CVS and their branch management (overall,
         some complaints of course)

rsc9      don't try to diff the acid code.

mjl-      will do that when writing docs (which is why i come
         up with these usage patches ;))

newsham   20h: have you guys looked at larch/arch ?

uriel     newsham: you are crazy ;P

mjl-      arch... bazaar... yay

noselasd  Oh - SCM fest. (/me brings the popcorn) ( *SIGH*)

uriel     newsham: I have, lets leave it for antoher time

rsc9      brb. have fun talking about version control.

uriel     rsc9: no, no, we gave up already!

mjl-      will go for a snack :)

uriel     ^_^

__20h__   newsham, It's not my idea. Replica and Patch is enough
         for me.

noselasd  Please. cvs vs whater. Insignificant.

newsham   arch has some nice properties (and seems to be tool
         oriented)

noselasd  whatever*

musasabi  arch is quite complex etc

musasabi  point.
         rsc9: So refactoring copy-paste code into common code
         is generally not a desirable change?

__20h__   And who implements metadata in 9p? :P

uriel     newsham: we can argue over arch anothter time, lets
         not scare rsc9 off ;)

newsham   i have nothing to argue about..

rsc9      back

uriel     newsham: sorry, my english sucks, I mean "discus"

rsc9      musasabi: don't understand the question
         oh, if you're talking about readline, you should be
         able to call read.
         how often do you read passwords anyway?

musasabi  rsc9: readline (readln and probably other names), e{malloc,free,realloc}
         and probably others.

__20h__   auth_proxy();

uriel     you could use a gui app for reading pass...

__20h__   Factotum does the password management.

uriel     rsc9: it would be interesting to know more of what
         are your plans for p9p
         __20h__: yup

mjl-      emalloc and stuff has already been discussed, read
         the archives

rsc9      i don't really have plans. as i need more software,
         i convert it. but i'm at a stable point now.

uriel     rsc9: I guess I was thinking more from the POV of bringing
         both code-bases closer..

__20h__   dtLinux - stable

uriel     (I have heard rumours that the venti code in p9p is
         more uptodate than in p9...)

rsc9      one thing on the horizon is adding a c front end compiler
         so that the sources look more the same.
         the sources already look almost identical (acme is
         the big exception but even those changes are simple
         if tedious)

newsham   c->c ?

rsc9      yes

musasabi  mjl-: actually I was the one proposing it in the archives
         ;)

rsc9      http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/src/cmd/venti

uriel     yes, that is a problem, hopefully I will get charless
         to fix up kencc some time this century and the OpenBSD
         guys will take care of the porting

rsc9      no no no. i am not putting a real compiler in. just
         c->c.

uriel     rsc9: just curious, why not?
-pperez  

musasabi  8c can be compiled on *nix, but the output is just
         not very usable.

--------- 5 mins

rsc9      because porting a compiler requires making it work
         with all the system libraries and the like. it's too
         much work.
         the p9p goal is to play well with unix.

uriel     rsc9: I see your point, still I hope some day someone
         does it

quintile  rsc9: the new venti include auth?

newsham   musasabi: wouldn't be that hard to fix it to emit useable
         (ie. elf) binaries (some arches already have a linker
         flag)

rsc9      besides, who really wants to keep up with all the library
         conventions on sunos.
         emitting elf is easy. emitting useful debugging is
         much harder.
         i have an 8c that can create hello, world.

Major-Wi  ELF -- yuk

newsham   blah dwarf.

uriel     rsc9: I'd be interested in seeing that(even if trivial)

rsc9      i have yet to hear a good idea about how to do auth
         in venti.

uriel     rsc9: what about the venti rewrite
         (which I found out about by reading the notes file
         in rejected patches....)

rsc9      i'm in the middle of rewriting venti. it's a lot faster,
         perhaps a little buggier, and needs a bit of cleanup
         before it will be ready for prime time.
         any other projects people care about?

newsham   wouldnt even a very limited amount of auth be significantly
         better than no auth?

uriel     rsc9: just curious, but don't you think that this kinds
         of cases the Open Source mantra of "release early,
         release often", could help?

noselasd  What projects are there - (at the labs , if any) ?

rsc9      newsham: let's postpone the venti auth. i can't do
         multiple conversations.

newsham   ok

Major-Wi  i have a cool idea for venti, but it's an expensive
         venture

quintile  projects - cross domain auth between servers (for a
         grid).

Major-Wi  too complex

rsc9      uriel: release early, release often only works if you
         have time to keep up with the submitted changes. i'm
         focusing on something other than venti.

uriel     rsc9: ok, I thought it could help with testing, and
         maybe someone could pick up if you dont' have the time
         to maintain/finish it, but well..

rsc9      the venti code is available if you want to hack on
         it. it's in the same place as plan 9 ports. module
         name is venti instead of plan9.

uriel     quintile: I think that was discused at OSDI and rejected,
         the current model seems good enough, otherwise I would
         recomend you to talk with charles about the Inferno
         auth model..

newsham   uriel: so far nobody's really picked up ron's xen stuff
         if you're looking for stuff to pick up...

uriel     rsc9: ok, thanks
         newsham: I know, I'm not saying that it will hapen,
         I'm just saying that it costs nothing to give people
         a chance

quintile  uriel: yep, just interested in russ's opinion.

rsc9      lucho helped me find some things. he emailed me.

uriel     newsham: didn't kuroneko pick up your spark code?

__20h__   Are there plans to have more than the PC-distribution?

rsc9      as for venti auth, it's just not a priority.

uriel     newsham: and didn't ericvh pick up v9fs even if after
         some years?

newsham   uriel: so far three people have approached me interested
         in sparc v8 stuff. I dont really know what has become
         of their work.. they may still be working on it.

rsc9      calling it a pc distribution is a little misleading.
         it's a full distribution, it just only installs on
         pcs.

uriel     newsham: the thing is that maybe you get something
         useful out of it, maybe not, but the chance is worth
         it, I think,
         anyway, just to be anoying, what about 9load... ;P

rsc9      what about it?

uriel     is someone working on it?

rsc9      as far as i know, not much is happening with 9load.

uriel     I also have heard(from third hand) of a rewrite of
         9load..

rsc9      vbe support got contributed for 9load, though i plan
         to move it out.
         jmk is working on an amd64 port, which includes cleaning
         up 9load some, but it's not a from-scratch rewrite.

uriel     ok, I guess that leave us free to fix the anoying IDE
         handling... :)

rsc9      what annoying ide handling?

uriel     rsc9: any chances we will get any of that cleaning
         up?

rsc9      any of what?

uriel     rsc9: if you don't have your ide devices in the right
         magic convination it wont work

rsc9      huh?

uriel     rsc9: 9load clean up...
         rsc9: ever tries to install having your CD-ROM as secondary
         master?

m4dh4tt3  yeah

rsc9      the 9load cleanup will come out when the amd64 port
         is ready. i believe the changes to 9load are pretty
         minimal so don't worry about it.

uriel     rsc9: its' a very commonly reported problem

m4dh4tt3  i do it all the time

rsc9      does the kernel work in that situation?

m4dh4tt3  sure does

noselasd  uriel: works fine. You just need to type the magic
         sdD1!... and so on :-)

uriel     rsc9: it should, I would say... but IIRC it has also
         some problems
         noselasd9: nope

rsc9      ide probing is black magic. the sdata there is supposed
         to be similar to the sdata in the kernel (dma is yanked
         out), so feel free to compare and fix.

m4dh4tt3  all you have to do is specify a different drive to
         load the kernel and the root fs

noselasd  uriel: funny, cause I did that yesterday though..

uriel     noselasd9: it doesn't work, and I have gone thru that
         problem at least three different times, the people
         at the 9con can tell you, we were a room packed with
         plan9 users and no one could get it to work until we
         changed the ide config

newsham   m4d: isnt that because of the plan9.ini, not the 9load?

rsc9      ide probing is black magic. some systems have buggy
         bioses too.

m4dh4tt3  newsham: iirc, yes

uriel     rsc9: yes, that too :(

rsc9      if you want to go after this bug and fix it, please
         do. trust me -- it won't go away on its own.

m4dh4tt3  ide probing is indeeed black magic. i've seen some
         really bizarre stuff

uriel     rsc9: ok, thanks
         drawterm..
         who maintains it? f2f says he doesn't, even if he does...

rsc9      i hate drawterm. andrey is doing a good job maintaining
         the 9p1 drawterm.

uriel     I hate dt too, but it's a fact of life..

rsc9      brucee is busy with other stuff though i think he might
         have a good 9p2000 drawterm at some point.
         dt2k is worth using, and if it didn't crash once in
         a while i'd install it.
         eventually i want to replace drawterm with a collection
         of programs in plan9port.

uriel     would be nice if f2f's changes were in the main distro,
         and handled with patch, but f2f won't do it because
         he says "I'm not the maintainer", so he basically maintains
         a fork

rsc9      but progress is slow. i do have ssl working though.

uriel     rsc9: where is dt2k?
         ACTION has never seen it, but I know f2f has got the
         code for some ancient version of it somewhere..

f2f       if you notice, uriel, the binaries have disappeared
         from the main distro with a small note pointing to
         ucalgary.

uriel     f2f: ah, that is new, and I don't like it, but well...

f2f       i think rsc just doesn't want that mess in p9

uriel     would be nice to have it in sources at least
         contrib/f2f?

f2f       i'm fine with ucalgary until a better replacement comes.
         this is where the dt2k code is too, at least the latest
         version i have

rsc9      andrey is in the drawterm group now.

uriel     cool

f2f       rsc, do you want me to merge the dt changes?

rsc9      the 9p1 changes? yes.

f2f       ok, will do

rsc9      brucee is swamped with other work. he won't mind.

uriel     ACTION would like to know more about dt2k and what
         is going on with it :)

f2f       but i'll keep the binaries on the web

rsc9      dt2k works well enough that i use it every day to apply
         patches.
         it crashes occasionally (some x problem) and i restart
         it.
         i never got around to a windows port.
         i don't believe it's the right approach so i am loathe
         to spend time debugging it.
         yes please keep binaries on the web.

uriel     rsc9: I think I know many people that would apreciate
         dt2k even without windoze port
         (and I know others that might fix the windoze port)

rsc9      google the 9fans archives for dt2k. i put it out there.

uriel     ok, that is the latest version then?

rsc9      sure.

Major-Wi  drawterm is pretty solid

uriel     ok, will do..

f2f       http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~mirtchov/p9/dt2k.tgz

uriel     f2f: that is the latest version too?

f2f       i got this from skip and made it compile cleanly under
         X

uriel     I see...

f2f       that's the latest i've heard about

rsc9      do you use it? does it crash?

f2f       it crashes, yes. i don't use it because the alpha blending
         is messed up (BGR vs RGB i believe)
         and it's a bit slower

axelB     (what about "replace drawterm with a collection of
         programs in plan9port" and windows?)

Major-Wi  BGR?

rsc9      what about it?

uriel     axelB: ah, fuck windows! (sorry, could not restis ;P)

axelB     just wondering. p9p doesn't do windows, I thought

noselasd  uriel: can you ever ? :)

uriel     noselasd9: if you knew...

rsc9      eventually plan9port will work on windows. don't care
         enough right now. very happy with my mac.

axelB     ok. fine

__20h__   Cygwin?

uriel     axelB: buy a mac mini, they are cheap ;)

Major-Wi  err, p9p port to windows is a major, hideous task

rsc9      it's not any more work than the original unix work.
         i've done it before.

m4dh4tt3  i miss the mac i had for my previous job

uriel     I guess another issue is p9p integration with v9fs
         and similar, but without eric or lucho around I think
         better leave that for other time

rsc9      my position is that p9p will not become dependent on
         v9fs -- it needs to work on systems without v9fs --
         but i'm perfectly happy if lucho and eric need hooks.

uriel     rsc9: sounds reasonable..

rsc9      we put one hook in already. auth_proxy tries to open
         /mnt/factotum/* before switching to the p9p factotum
         socket.

musasabi  Is there a reason plan9 headers don't have #ifdef protection
         agains multiple #includes ? (stdio.h mainly - some
         headers have function prototypes with FILE* and making
         sure stdio.h is included just once adds many trivial
         (unnecessary) changes.

uriel     musasabi: that is a well known one, use sane headers

rsc9      don't include headers twice.

uriel     exactly

rsc9      if you're compiling legacy code, then use ape. the
         ape stdio.h is protected.

uriel     musasabi: feel free to add to the faq
         rsc9: BTW, could you update the running version of
         the wiki, I really need it to make the FAQ page useable..

Major-Wi  Is there a reason plan9 headers don't have #ifdef protection
         agains multiple #includes ? -- YES, YOU are 'sposed
         to get that right

musasabi  ACTION uses the "not my code" and "uriel will flame
         me to death for APE" arguments.

rsc9      google for "follow the simple rule" pike
         if it's not your code, you should use ape.

uriel     or fix it :)

__20h__   Or delete it.

Major-Wi  rm is a swell prgramm debugger

musasabi  nontrivial socket code + APE was not very nice so I
         am trying to live with 8c -p.

uriel     rsc9: I got some changes to the templates of the wiki,
         I haven't sent them because I have seen that the ones
         in the distribution and the ones in the plan 9 wiki
         are not in sync anyway...

m4dh4tt3  when fixing it means re-writing it, the probability
         that it will get done approaches zero

rsc9      uriel: i think i restarted wikifs

uriel     rsc9: let me check again...

[...]

rsc9      gotta go. forgot about another appt.