[Scons-dev] Subprocess issue on Linux?

[anatoly techtonik]

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Tom Tanner (BLOOMBERG/ LONDON)
<ttanner2 at bloomberg.net> wrote:

> NB Yes, I realise this will potentially break things, but why execute a

> shell if you don't have to?


Fair point. I was once a Windoze user, who didn't realize what shell is
and just want things to just work (like PATH etc).


> I'd really like to make it do something like perl:

> If you pass an array [ 'prog', '$TARGET', '$SOURCE' ] it doesn't execute a

> shell. Otherwise (passing a single string), it will examine for special

> characters, and if none are found it will split on white space and execute

> that, or it will pass that line to the shell.


Magic is good. Mystery should be banned. Rule of thumb for a good code
is calculating chances. What is the chance that somebody no familiar with
semantics will get what exactly code does without reading the docs? If the
value is below 80% - drop it. If you can't drop it - write a comment. If the
comment is too huge - find an issue on the internet and link to it.
-- 
anatoly t.