[semi-OT] Pretty vs. Useful output

[mark]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Michael ODonnell <
michael.odonnell at comcast.net> wrote:

>
> <rant>
> Grrrrr!!  A long-standing source of frustration for me is that people who
> definitely should know better insist on writing code that utters only
> "pretty" outputs instead of useful, parseable info.  Yes, it's darling
> and precious that the authors of (say) mdadm, dumpe2fs or /proc/cpuinfo
> spent so much time arranging for their output to be so neatly lined up,
> but it's a fscking PITA for scripts to pluck useful info from within
> that sort of dreck.
>
> If I were king I'd decree that all software be capable of uttering its
> output in a manner that can easily be scanned for items of interest,
> using a format like (say) key=value pairs or maybe (the disappointingly
> oversold) XML.  You can always prettify info delivered in a regular
> format but going the other way is, as already mentioned, error-prone
> and inefficient.
> </rant>
>
>
In Unix & Linux, all output at the command line should be able to be
perceived as a white-space & carriage-return delimeted stream, irrepesctive
what generated it, or how it got that way.  The param=value or XML encased
output are just as harmful as anything prettied-up to be people readable.

Just my 2¢

mark
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