1y ago

How NOT TO CODE: Intel's Linux Thunderbolt Utils Code is the WORST I have EVER SEEN!

18 comments

I don't code, but is hardcoding sudo EVER a reasonable thing in C?
- It's not reasonable in any language
- it is not
Putting aside the "should/shouldn't do" argument, I was also wondering if the code is even viable. I imagine that 'ls' and 'sudo' are probably pretty ubiquitous, but I bet there exist some Linux installs out there with a different shell than 'bash', and some might not have 'grep' too. That would lead to some pretty cryptic bugs for the end user, eh?
- I might be wrong, but I believe Debian ships without sudo, only su by default (or at least if you configure a root password in the setup).
  
  You're right ! And I really should get used to how debian works with su.
  But with docker it's very convenient to add an user in the docker groupe with sudo :/
- I bet there exist some Linux installs out there with a different shell than 'bash',
  100%. Alpine is one such distro.
  
  Also, doas instead of sudo
  
  Iirc Void too.
- That code is a crime against nature and humanity.
- I believe POSIX mandates grep and a shell that should be able to handle everything this code uses, but sudo is a problem
- Debian doesn't come with sudo and it's always annoying running into stuff that has it hardcoded (or just added by default to a command)
FYI, the Intel code used to be here (https://github.com/intel/thunderbolt-utils) but apparently was archived a week ago. So instead, the video creator posted the fork here: https://github.com/rxrbln/thunderbolt-utils
geez I tried my best not to be stereotypical, but...I am a flawed human being and I searched for their linkedin profile, it suddenly all checks out
- I don't like cryptic message like this, especially if the repo seems to be gone
  
  I don't like being cryptic at all, but "free speech" doesn't always include discriminatory ones. And being flawed, I can't stop my brain from generating those thoughts, so I just tried to be a slightly friendlier a*hole. Otherwise I could have said: PhD, yeah of course, so many of them are so used to writing shitty code without peer reviews for so long, that totally checks out. And Indian...again. well, no wonder.

18 comments