README: attempt to clarify intent

This commit is contained in:
dtb 2024-07-18 09:32:58 -06:00
parent e90d25e30f
commit cd875df547
Signed by: trinity
GPG Key ID: 34C0543BBB6AF81B

29
README
View File

@ -1,23 +1,29 @@
“Seek not to walk the path of the masters; seek what they sought.”
Matsuo Basho
The Bonsai harakit utilities are a replacement for standard POSIX utilities
which aim to fill its niche while expanding on their capabilities. These new
tools are the result of the careful examination of the current state of POSIX
and Unix utilies. The Unix Philosophy of “do one thing and do it well” are their
core but they avoid clinging to the past.
The Bonsai harakit is an alternative to the standard POSIX utility set that
aims to be simpler, easier, and more powerful than its counterpart. These tools
are the result of careful examination of the current state of POSIX and common
Unix utilities. They represent a vision of accomplishing everyday use cases
with tools that follow the Unix philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”,
without clinging to the past.
The era of the original Unix tools has been long and fruitful, but they have
their flaws. This project originated from frustrations with the way certain
tools work and how other projects that extend POSIX dont make anything better.
This project will not follow in the footsteps of GNU; extensions of POSIX will
not be found here. GNU extensions are a gateway to the misuse of the shell. The
harakit utilities will intentionally discourage use of the shell for purposes
beyond its scope.
The intent of harakit is not to conform to or extend POSIX, like the GNU or BSD
utilities, but to invent new utilities to perform the same tasks in more
intuitive ways. GNU and BSD extensions are convenient but often unhealthy,
forgetting the purposes of the tools they extend, or building into existing
utilities features that would be more useful as their own tools to be used
anywhere. Whereas other utility sets aim to provide a number of fully-featured
programs to be used individually, harakit tools are meant to be easily
composable and work together in pipelines.
See docs/ for more on the specific utilities currently implemented.
Building
Harakit utilities require a POSIX-compliant environment to compile, including a
@ -43,6 +49,7 @@ To remove all build and distributable files:
$ make clean
Read More
An Introduction to the Unix Shell
@ -57,6 +64,10 @@ Master Foo Discourses on the Unix-Nature
Shell Programming!
<https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/why-shell.html>
UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful
<http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/>
--
Copyright © 20232024 Emma Tebibyte <emma@tebibyte.media>
Copyright © 2024 DTB <trinity@trinity.moe>