The search for truth: the `true` and `false` programs

This meetup will concentrate on simple and common commands: true and false. We will start with the OpenBSD true program and compare it to FreeBSD's, Solaris', GNU bash's, and GNU's. They all have different complexity, and some even have different features, which should provide for an interesting discussion.

Read the source code ahead of time and reflect on some of the talking points or come up with additional ones.

While reading the code consider the following discussion points in addition to any you think of: What is the code boilerplate and why is it there? This is a small program; how did the different implementations demonstrate this? Why does this program exist? What shortcuts did they take and how do those make it easier to read?

For those who don't yet have four variants of true.c on your hard disk, you can find them online:

OpenBSD:

• http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/true/true.sh
• http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/false/false.sh

FreeBSD:

• http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/true/true.c?revision=216370&view=markup
• http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/false/false.c?revision=216370&view=markup

Solaris (thanks to Torbjörn Norinder):

• https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/blob/master/usr/src/cmd/true/true.c

• https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/blob/master/usr/src/cmd/false/false.c

GNU Bash (thanks to Simon Andersson):

• http://code.adamrisi.com/p/prestryke/source/tree/master/src/bash/bash-4.1/examples/loadables/truefalse.c

GNU:

• http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/true.c
• http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/false.c

This should all take about three hours. Food and drinks will be provided by thoughtbot.

About us:

This is a reading group for code. Our focus will be the classics and tools we use every day. The inspiration is the shared metaphors and expressions we have in natural language due to common books (e.g. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Romeo and Juliet) and movies (e.g. Hackers, A Christmas Carol).