Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!am.dsir.govt.nz!dsiramd!marcamd!tcnz2!greg From: greg@tcnz2.tcnz.co.nz (Greg Calkin) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: How wrong is MS-DOS? (or: What is the definition of obsolete) Keywords: Useful vs Trivial Message-ID: <493@tcnz2.tcnz.co.nz> Date: 14 Jan 91 00:01:51 GMT References: <11234@lanl.gov> Reply-To: greg@tcnz.co.nz (Greg Calkin) Organization: Thomas Cook NZ Head Office, Auckland, NZ Lines: 24 In article <11234@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes: >From article , by ppessi@niksula.hut.fi (Pekka Pessi): >> [...] >> See regex(3). So you are not ignorant about Unix? > >No, I'm not. The existence of regex(3) _supports_ my prosition on grep. >That is: grep is a trivial tool that doesn't have any business being a >separate utility. In nearly every context where people recommend the >use of grep, regex() is a _better_ solution. There are many situations where a one off grep is incredibly useful, e.g searching 20 files for a string or 2 or stripping a few names out of a pipe where slapping together something to use the library would be ridiculously time consuming. I would imagine the first thing many people with only a library routine would do is cobble together something to use on pipes for ad hoc situations. The same holds true for many Unix utilities - their functions are trivial, they may be more effectively processed through libraries, etc, but they are incredibly USEFUL for ad hoc work, so their existence is justified. -- Greg Calkin, Systems Engineer and Dreamer (greg@tcnz.co.nz) Thomas Cook N.Z. Limited, PO Box 24, Auckland CPO, New Zealand, Ph (09)-793920 Disclaimer : Would you buy a used car from someone with these opinions ?