Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!spool2.mu.edu!think.com!mintaka!spdcc!iecc!Postmaster
From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: How wrong is MS-DOS? (or: What is the definition of obsolete)
Message-ID: <9101122055.AA11537@iecc.cambridge.ma.us>
Date: 13 Jan 91 01:55:16 GMT
References: <PPESSI.91Jan12222745@spiderman.hut.fi>
Sender: Postmaster@iecc.cambridge.ma.us
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Lines: 15
In-Reply-To: <11234@lanl.gov>

Gee, when I started this thread on why DOS is useful, I didn't expect it to
evolve in this direction.

There's no doubt that grep is a trivial tool.  What makes it useful is the
ease with which it can be included in useful non-trivial shell scripts.  Until
there's a language that lets you build programs with regexp() as easily as
sh lets you built them with grep, I expect to use grep about 100 times as
often as regexp.

The usual DOS application builders are either batch files, using a language
slightly less powerful than the 5th edition Mashey shell, or else Turbo C.
No thanks.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl