Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!mimsy!mojo!chuck
From: chuck@eng.umd.edu (Chuck Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need input for future DOS release
Message-ID: <1990Mar29.165634.1267@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 29 Mar 90 16:56:34 GMT
Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (The News System)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Lines: 50

Dear Microsoft,	
	These are a few things I would like to see in dos:

1) a 'mv' command that works like unix (easy to do, I did it years ago).
2) a 'rm' command that can do rm -[irf] (eg kill a directory and everything
   in it, and prompt individual deletions if desired.)
   If you must ask questions on a *.* deletion, make an environment variable
   that will turn them off.
3) a 'more' that takes file names as well as stdin (easy to do, I did it too)
4) gimme 'ls' and don't calculate the disk size unless I ask for it...It takes
   too long.
5) Use the switchar function in all of your utilities so I can stop smacking
   myself on the side of the head when I slip into 'unix' thinking while I am
   in dos (eg. using '/' instead of '\').  Bill Gates in effect gave all the
   professional programmers in the world the finger when he allowed '\' to be
   the path separator, and '/' to be the option switch.
6) command lines longer than 128 chars (difficult I know). A keybuffer that is
   humungous would be nice too 15 chars is a joke (a rather bad one at that).
7) 'chmod' that knows about hidden files too (easy to do, we all did it).
8) DUMP EDLIN!!! nobody I know can use it. Me I'm old enough to figure it out
   but still can't use it reliably.  Why not license JOVE? (an emacs like
   editor that works great on pc's.
9) put a little help in your commands so that when I screw up the arguments
   and the command knows it, it will prompt me like unix does.
	(eg. "ls -[aslRtc] [file] ...")
10)Is it really too late to fix wildcards so that they work correctly?  The
   first time I typed DEL *r*.c and wiped my directory of all c programs, I
   almost died. (so did my PC!).
11)What about a way of setting screen and text colors that doesn't require
   the ansi.sys abortion?
12)What about fixing the ansi.sys abortion?  If you need an example, go talk
   to Hershey Micro Consulting about FANSI-Console.
13)Oh yeah, how about moving all of the commands out of command.com, and
   onto disk.  Most of your audience has discovered the harddisk, and we sure
   could use the ram space they would release.
14)Fix CHKDSK so that it understands the JOIN command, and checks ALL of the
   disks rather than quitting when it finds a joined directory.  It is a real
   pain to have to go down to root, and un-join my disks, then run chkdsk,
   and then re-join everything.
15)Fix JOIN so that it can join disks to directories other than those at
   root.
16)Loooong paths would be nice too.
17)history like is done in kornshell would be nice.
18)alias strings would be great! as long as you can un-alias them on the fly.

	Well, that should be enough to keep you busy into the 21th century.
Thanks for listening.

	Chuck Harris
	C.F. Harris - Consulting