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Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/

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On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:10:02 +0100 "Martin McCormick" 
<martin.m@suddenlink.net> wrote:

 >         If you aren't in to trying to modify some sort of
 > embedded system to do something it wasn't originally designed to
 > do then ram and storage are getting cheaper by the day and some
 > things just aren't worth worrying about.

To a great extent that's true, although there is the danger
of falling into the attitude that abundance justifies waste.
(This can once again make things worth worrying about,
well before it might be necessary if you do things efficiently.)

However, there's another consideration: the KISS principle.
A system that needs 780 files is going to be a lot more complex
and difficult to understand than one that gets by with one or two.
This can have serious impacts on reliability and maintainability.

I'm seeing more and more cases of systems falling apart because
they're becoming too complex to administer.  Some of this is because
they "just grew", without proper planning and pruning.  Some of it
is due to that effect described by Blaise Pascal, who once apologized
for the length of the letter he was writing because he didn't have
time to make it shorter.  And some, I'm sad to say, are a deliberate
effort at obfuscation: an old trick long used by politicians to keep
the electorate blissfully ignorant of their shenanigans, and now
adopted by some equally nefarious system designers.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  Apple is a cult.
  X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  Linux is anarchy.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  Pick your poison.

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Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> - 2020-11-30 19:10 +0100
  Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Robert Tonkavich <rmtonkavich@gmail.com> - 2020-11-30 19:20 +0100
    Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-11-30 19:30 +0100
      Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2020-11-30 20:10 +0100
    Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-11-30 20:00 +0100
    Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-11-30 22:00 +0100
      Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2020-11-30 23:30 +0100
        Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-12-01 01:30 +0100
          Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-12-01 06:30 +0100
            Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Robert Tonkavich <rmtonkavich@gmail.com> - 2020-12-01 14:20 +0100
              Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-12-02 11:10 +0100
        Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-12-01 01:50 +0100
  Re: 780 files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-11-30 19:30 +0100

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