Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!opusc!yarnall
From: yarnall@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Yarnall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: PIPEs
Message-ID: <1990Nov10.231801.29933@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 90 23:18:01 GMT
References: <2201@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Organization: Math Department, University of South Carolina (ahem; The USC)
Lines: 43

In article <2201@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
+In <1990Nov8.035305.14484@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu>, yarnall@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Yarnall) writes:
+
+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.

I agree with most of this, esp. the bit about the or operator.  However, it
is not so obvious to me that whitespace `should' surround a pipe symbol,  in
particular if there is no real need to require it, which there would not be
if we don't overload the `|' symbol.  
+
+>Unix is a marvelous invironment, and every modern operating system probably
                      ^---did I really do that?  Egads!
+>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.

What is restrictive about it?  It doesn't limit what you can do in any way
that I can fathom.  Strictly speaking, it is less restrictive, since one
wouldn't have to require whitespace around it.

+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.

Amen, Brother.

+-larry

ken
-- 
     Ken Yarnall                 ///   yarnall@usceast.cs.scarolina.EDU
      Math Department, USC   \\\///   yarnall@ucseast.UUCP
       Columbia, S.C. 29208   \\\/   (803)777-5218
    `You'd better tie me up.' -- from the movie, "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down"