Re: PIPI (Parsed Input Process Initiator) -- another silly proposal?

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

In article <[🔎] Pine.LNX.4.21.0007191403460.468-100000@smash.sz.techno-link.com>
on debian-devel, Pavel M. Penev wrote:
>PIPI tries to solve the following main problems:
>        1. The standatd input of a programme is not convenient for
>supplying
>        more than one large or streaming programme argument.
>
>        2. Because of problem #1 programmes use files to store their
>arguments,
>        making it hard to pipe them.

I much prefer the process substitution feature of bash(1) (and possibly
other shells), where one can do things like:

  $ diff <(sed s/-/./g < file) <(tr - . < file)
  $ 

>        3. A big application porting problem nowadays are the differences
>        between the UIs on the various platforms.

I don't see what user interfaces have to do with standard input and
streams, particularly (at least not any user interface that differs
across platforms), nor do I really see how this helps portability. I
think you can pipe streams across network connections easily enough with
current mechanisms, and since said mechanisms are composed from the
normal shell-based ways of initiating network connections I think
they're much easier to understand than yet another syntax would be.

-- 
Colin Watson