Subject: Re: bug#67241: [PATCH] guix-install.sh: Add message about Info reader.

From: Simon Tournier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2025 18:37:23 +0100

Hi Maxim,

On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 at 16:58, Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hm.  I agree duplication is not nice.  Probably a naming issue ;-)

Arf, as we know: « There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
cache invalidation and naming things. » :-)

> According to git blame these lines were also authored by you 4 years
> ago, ha!

Ah, you got me! ;-)  Bah I am consistent.

> It checks the exit status instead of the captured string output.  While
> it's not that bad in that case, in general I find checking for the exit
> status a much more reliable and clean option.

Thanks for explaining.  I will re-send that way.  However, I still think
that’s the same from some Bash point of view…

>> Both $() and "" used in tandem makes the test sound, from my
>> understanding.
>
> Hm.  Is [ "something" ] true and [ "" ] false?  Apparently it is, but
> I'd argue that's not very clear, especially when there are explicit test
> operations to check for an non-empty or empty string (test -n and test
> -z).

…and welcome to weird Bash. ;-)  Maybe I have misread, from my
understanding, this:

    if [ "$(type -P foo)" ]

is equivalent to:

    if test -n $(type -P foo)

and also equivalent to:

    if type -P foo >/dev/null

And I know nothing about internals; maybe some type conversion are
avoided with the latter and some cycles are saved?

Well, it appears to me a matter of taste. :-)  I find the former easier
to parse than the latter.  But I also fine with the latter; let do that.

Cheers,
simon