[NCLUG] /etc/environment

[John L. Bass]

bob at proulx.com (Bob Proulx) writes:
> Or any of a number of ways to edit a set of files all at one time.  I
> don't think it is good to trade off a one time editing of five or 25
> files by a developer when making major changes to installation paths
> against the complexity added if this is pushed into the user
> environment.

We can agree to disagree here ... I can say that unless the wrapper
scripts are generated with a packaging script set, they get to be
a nightmare to manage ... been there, done that, and it's hell. This
most offen happens when the previous developer moves on, and some other
consultant/hire a year or two later is tasked with upgrading the system.
At this point prior knowledge is lost, and tracking them down is difficult
at best, and prone to having random failures for months to follow.

> Wait, wait, wait...  We were talking about Java here.  If we start
> comparing the overhead of invoking /bin/sh versus *Java* I am pretty
> confident that the shell is not going to be a significant negative
> impact.  In particular because we are talking about Java I can't see
> how I could lose.  :-)

I don't care if it's java or c ... the problem is the number of filesystem
hits required to startup a new process.

When all, or part of these files are relocated to a SAN or NFS partition,
especially if raid, then the number of network transactions is huge and
costly.

There are side effects of these decisions, that are very costly for common
practices in many shops.

It's certainly not free ... and that is the point about being performance
aware.

John