Re: BeastieBox, a (Net)BSD BusyBox-like

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008 10:44:50 +0100 (CET)
iMil <imil%home.imil.net@localhost> wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> a couple of days ago, I started a for-fun project named BeastieBox.
> Its goal is to provide a small BSD environment for embedded platforms
> like home / wireless routers, ADSL / Cable boxes and many other
> recent small devices having a very limited amount of disk space and
> memory.
> 
> I am aware of the crunchgen(1) utility, but my goal here is not to 
> "repackage" only baseline tools, instead I have in mind to reduce as
> much as possible programs size using #ifdef's and such,

I think it's a great goal, but I'm not happy about seeing a lot of new
#ifdefs in the base system.  #ifdefs make code hard to read and hard to
test; they'll also make your code fragile, because someone working in
the main branch will add something but never test compilation, let
alone behavior, in the #ifdef'd section.

I think it's worth some thought on how best to do this.  Perhaps if you
only #ifdef out complete routines, or substitute your own stubs?


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb