[illumos-Developer] webrev: 278 get rid zfs of python and pyzfs dependencies

[Garrett D'Amore]

On Thu, 2010-11-11 at 16:17 -0800, Erik Trimble wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 3:56 PM, Cyril Plisko wrote:

> 
> That said, one thing we do need to watch is execution time, for those 
> programs that are frequently run via batching or scripting. I've seen a 
> lot of fingers pointed at IPS being slow due to python's execution 
> overhead.  Now, I'm not sure that really was the case, but it is 
> something we do have to watch - those utilities where execution speed is 
> a concern are definitely a candidate for C rather than python, even if 
> it comes at the expense of code complexity.
> 
> 


My biggest reason for wanting python out of the "minimal" system (and
also perl btw!) has to do with dependency management, and evolving
interfaces.  perl was particularly bad here, as new versions of perl
would come along that would break things.

So, from my perspective there are three options:

a) accept that dependencies change, and deal with the fallout when a
dependency changes.  (This is hard to do when we don't "own" our own
copy of python, and worse, python brings with it *GNOME* dependencies!).

b) resolve the dependency by integrating python locally into ON (which I
think most people would agree is not a great idea)

c) eliminate the dependency by sticking to a compiled language (or in
some cases, to shell languages that are integrated).

I have chosen "c", which also happens to be "C". :-)

Of course there are other arguments to be made about runtime
performance, C being a common denominator amongst programmers, etc.  But
those all come second to the main problem which is dependency
management.

	- Garrett