Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!amgraf!desktech!fanning From: fanning@desktech.DTI.CPS.COM (Blaise Fanning) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: UNIX mind-set (was: How wrong is MS-DOS?) Message-ID: <9@desktech.DTI.CPS.COM> Date: 15 Jan 91 16:12:44 GMT References: <11267@lanl.gov> Organization: Deskstation Technology, Inc., Lenexa, Kansas, USA Lines: 57 > >A production quality ls would have the capability to filter any >of the fields of a file description in generally useful ways. >For example, what about 'ls -before 1/1/90' to list all files >created before Jan. first 1990? Try to do _that_ with grep. > **Disclaimer : I like both Unix and VMS. ** What I think I'm hearing is that you feel that each command line you type should consist of a single command with all of the options that you need to accomplish a single (sometimes trivial,sometimes complex) task. In that case, VMS is the operating system for you! I have been both a VMS and a Unix user in the past and have found that either OS is sufficient to get my job done. Each, of course, takes some getting used to, and switching from one to the other can be frustrating. This is because the two operating systems come from entirely different directions in terms of how they are used. VMS is meant to be used by people who, like Mr. Giles, like to add options to a single command to accomplish what they need. VMS is so option-laden that you can sometimes guess options to commands without knowing that they exist: dir /before=1-jan-1990 The "before" keyword is used in a few different places, but DIR and BACKUP leap to mind. In VMS, sometimes you can guess options that are undocumented. (Have they included SET TIME/CLUSTER in the online documentation yet???) Unix, on the other hand, trims down individual commands by forcing users to understand exactly what they want to do and allowing them to do it. (Note that the word "forcing" in the last sentence could truthfully be replaced by "empowering".) My point is this: VMS offers Mr. Giles what he wants and Unix does not. Why, then, is he championing DOS, which does not empower users to do much of anything on a single command line? Is he claiming that he has fewer than 9 things that he *ever* wants to do? DOS : $100 Simple Command Utilities : 9 @ $100 (pretty cheap) = $900. Let's be a little consistent here. If the thread converns whether Unix or DOS is better. Let's get away from saying things like "It's hard to do this thing-that-I-can't-do-anyway-in-DOS in Unix, so DOS is better...". Blaise __________________________________________________________________________ Blaise Fanning Principal Engineer DeskStation Technology Lenexa, KS