svn commit: r275601 - projects/building-blocks

[Mark Peek]

On 12/10/14 1:19 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote:
> On Dec 10, 2014, at 13:03, John-Mark Gurney <jmg at funkthat.com> wrote:
>
>> Mark Peek wrote this message on Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 08:58 -0800:
>>> On 12/8/14 7:54 AM, Ian Lepore wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 2014-12-08 at 07:43 +0000, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>>>>> Author: ngie
>>>>> Date: Mon Dec  8 07:43:02 2014
>>>>> New Revision: 275601
>>>>> URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/275601
>>>>>
>>>>> Log:
>>>>>   - Document why usr.bin/vi needs to be built as part of bootstrap-tools
>>>>> ...snip...
>>>>
>>>> Is there any chance someone who understands vi could evaluate what it's
>>>> being used for and perhaps eliminate it?  I know just enough about vi to
>>>> get out of it if I accidentally get in.
>>>>
>>>> When I looked into this a few days ago it appears to be using it to sort
>>>> the data before compiling (an optimization that problably hasn't been
>>>> important to do since the 90s).  Could another existing build tool such
>>>> as awk do the job?
>>>
>>> My reading of that code agrees with yours in that it is using 'ex' to
>>> prioritize some terminal entries in the termcap file. However, it is then
>>> hashed into a berkeleydb via cap_mkdb which should render the initial
>>> prioritization useless. Rather than rewriting it I would suggest completely
>>> removing the reordering and the ex dependency.
>>
>> There was some dicussion about removing some of the various databases,
>> and having commonly used entries at the top would help in this case..
>
> I was looking at Fedora 20’s termcap just the other day, and I was surprised at the brevity in the file (only a couple entries for “xterm”). They also have it split into multiple files instead of just one file too (/usr/share/vte/termcap-0.0/xterm). Maybe this would be a good move going forward (or not…???)?
>
> Why should the .db files be removed? I think reducing the bloat from the files due to overestimated bucket sizes would be a good first start instead of just removing them altogether (I noticed that termcap.db has the same bloat problem services.db has).

Taking a step back, which problem are we trying to solve? I see:
1. remove a vi (ex) dependency from the bootstrap-tools
2. termcap is too big and should be minimized
3. remove the use of .db files

Both #2 and #3 seem to need more thought, discussion and debate before 
implementing them. #1 can be easily accomplished without any loss of 
functionality given we are currently using .db files and don't require the 
reorder step during the bootstrap. #2 and #3 can then be solved independent of 
#1 while allowing for a more streamlined bootstrap phase.

Also, there is etc/termcap.small in the system should there need to be one and 
the larger termcap could become a port.

Mark