Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!uplherc!wicat!meph!gsarff From: gsarff@meph.UUCP (Gary Sarff) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: shell architecture (to glob or not to glob) Message-ID: <00086@meph.UUCP> Date: 11 Mar 91 18:41:39 GMT References: <378@bria> <19062@cbmvax.commo <5615@awdprime.UUCP> <488@bria> Reply-To: gsarff@meph.UUCP Organization: WICAT Systems Inc., Orem Utah Lines: 38 In article <488@bria>, lindsay@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) writes: >In an article, skyler.arc.ab.ca!kenw (Ken Wallewein) writes: > >> Sure, one can apply escaping and quoting, etc. But programs which rely >>on shell globbing generally can't handle such arguments anyway. >> >> Consider another case (what the heck, I'm brave :-) >> >> > mv cmp* compress* > >Please. Not *this* example *again*. Yawwwwwwwwn. >Again, roll your own if you don't like it they way it is. > I don't know about the person posting above, D. Lindsay, not K. Wallewein but there are actually people who have to use unix who are not programmers and are not capable of rolling their own. I assume K. Wallewein probably is capable, I am capable, I have written a shell and fixed up utils, so it makes the thing work more like the other OS I am developer for, but some people are not. The point of this posting though, is I am struck by K. Wallewein's statement, "not *this* example *again*" Think about it, think about the "again" part. That means it's common isn't it? Many people say this, or want it, so might we wish to enquire why? Maybe because it seems intuitive to them? That after becoming a bit familiar with wildcards and living in the shell for a bit of time, they, mistakenly, but I believe with some little justification, expect things like the mv example above to work. They want this facility, and all they get from people, as from K. Wallewein is "go roll your own, I'm not interested." I thought that _our_ job (our being those technical people among us) is to help our users, make their lives easier, and help them get their work done. Not force them into mold that they don't fit into just because it is frozen into a "standard" and it would sacrilege to change it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do memory page swapping to floppies?, I said, yes we can do that, but you haven't lived until you see our machine do swapping over a 1200 Baud modem line, and keep on ticking. ..uplherc!wicat!sarek!gsarff