Xref: utzoo comp.arch:21518 comp.os.misc:1686
Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!nic.csu.net!csun!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Globbing
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.031738.11983@kithrup.COM>
Date: 18 Mar 91 03:17:38 GMT
References: <2438@ria.ccs.uwo.ca> <44200@cos.com> <1406@sheol.UUCP>
Followup-To: comp.os.misc
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Lines: 28

(Wrong newsgroup again!  I've posted this to c.o.m and redirected followups
there.  Again.  *sigh*)

In article <1406@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>But, that doesn't mean that it can't be done to "Unix" as an
>environment.  Just that it has to be done co-operatively with the shell,
>not co-operatively with individual commands. 

Embos had a wonderful "feel" to it.  I really liked it.  Part of this was
accomplished by having an incredibly powerful parameterization interface,
which was (more or less) shared between both programming languages (well,
Pascal and C, at least 8-)) and the shell.  The shell had commands to set
types of parameters, and other qualifiers.  (Whether it was positional or
not, whether it was a file-list [in which case it got 'globbed'], etc.)

It would not be impossible to write an embos-like shell to unix, and then
create shell scripts using it.

Note, incidently, that, even though embos had the *ability* to do 'mv *.x
*.y', the rename utility did not do that, as it caused too many problems
(for people who came from unix, which was a large part of its intended
audience).

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.