Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!uwm.edu!src.honeywell.com!msi.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!atc!s5000!nightowl!hawkmoon!det
From: det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: UNIX mind-set (was: How wrong is MS-DOS?)
Message-ID: <1991Jan15.092828.1029@hawkmoon.MN.ORG>
Date: 15 Jan 91 09:28:28 GMT
References: <8148@hub.ucsb.edu> <11313@lanl.gov>
Organization: Home System (One of the Eternal Champions); Eagan, MN, 55123-2507, USA
Lines: 42

jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:

>From article <8148@hub.ucsb.edu>, by tom@bears.ucsb.edu (Tom Weinstein):
>> [...]
>> And you've been using UNIX for ten years?  The shell does wildcard
>> substitution, not ls.  You could just as easily type 'echo x*y'.

>Yes, you could type 'echo x*y' - which would write the string 'x*y'
>on your terminal.  The shell does no wildcard substitution on any
>argument _automatically_.  The tool has to ask for the functionality.

I suspect that you may have, when you saw Tom Weinstein claiming you could type
"echo x*y", immediately tried the command and discovered it typed the literal
string "x*y" instead of expanding the wildcard characters.

I have discovered that the majority of beginning computer users regard computer
operating systems and their respective command interpreters as some macabre
joke perpetuated upon them by some evil computer scientist who forces
apparently random commands and command sequences upon innocent users.  Without
a general understanding of the basic underlying structure, computers (as well
as human languages if you think about it) do often appear capricous and
arbitrary.

Your statement above about the "echo x*y" command is starting to
convince me that you fall into that group of beginning computer users.
In deference to you, I believe that you must have made a mistake and didn't
mean to say what you said; however, if you uphold the veracity of your claims,
I would suggest that you reevaluate your analysis of the various unix tools
because if you are mistaken about one of them, you may possibly be mistaken in
the others as well.

If the tool in question *did* ask for the functionality of wildcard
expansion and there didn't happen to be any files in the directory that
began with "x" and ended in "y", what would be the result?  Would the
argument disappear?  Or perhaps be replaced by the token "No_Matching_Files"?
These are all possibilities and a matter of definition, i suppose.  In the
unix case, it has been defined (good or bad) that the argument be passed
through to the application unchanged.
-- 
Derek "Tigger" Terveer	det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG - MNFHA, NCS - UMN Women's Lax, MWD
I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need
your advice.  -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots