Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: PIPEs
Message-ID: <2201@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 9 Nov 90 19:41:23 GMT
Lines: 48
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <1990Nov8.035305.14484@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu>, yarnall@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Yarnall) writes:
>+
>+Seriously, if it weren't for the ability of Unix shells to accept the pipe
>+operator without delimiting whitespace, it would be a complete non-issue.
>+Nobody would even think to question it.
>
>What in the world makes you think that?  It seems as obvious as any other
>evolution that has taken place that allows greater flexibility.  I hereby
>declare that, even if Unix shells didn't allow whitespace surrounding pipe
>symbols, I would have thought of it.

Seems perfectly natural to me to use whitespace as a delimiter, especially
between conceptually diffent parts of a command line. As an 'OR' operator, the
'|' 'looks right' without whitespace because it separates two exact patterns,
and if those patterns have no embedded spaces, then you don't want them in
there. As a pipe operator it looks right (to me) with whitespace because its
function is a separate function from whatever exists on either side of it.

>In fact, as I recall, when I first started using pipes, I placed whitespace
>around them because it looked right, not because I read about it in the man
>pages.  I also didn't put whitespace around the symbols when I wanted to
>crunch lots onto a line (I have this paranoid thing about real long command
>lines), without being told that it was a great `feature' of csh that I could
>decide which way I wanted to do it.  
>
>Unix is a marvelous invironment, and every modern operating system probably
>owes it a bit of homage, but it is not the sacred chalise of All that is
>Right and Holy.

While I agree that flexibility in whitespace is a boon, I also think that
adding yet another character (or combination of characters), to mean 'pipe' is
a far more restrictive move than simply saying that the character preceding a
pipe character must be a space.

I don't think Unix is all right or holy either, and in fact I see a lot of
rather severe limitations in various aspects of it that we do not suffer from
on the Amiga.

-larry

--
It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs.
    -D.Wolfskill
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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