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From: david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: instability in Berkeley versus AT&T releases (absurdly long)
Message-ID: <2014@ukma.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Aug-85 02:21:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: ukma.2014
Posted: Sun Aug  4 02:21:13 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Aug-85 07:25:00 EDT
References: <2067@ucf-cs.UUCP> <363@cuae2.UUCP> <2423@sun.uucp> <5819@utzoo.UUCP> <349@phri.UUCP> <5852@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover)
Organization: Univ. of KY Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 45
Keywords: cat -v, ls -C

In article <5852@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> 	Why is "cat -v" a botch?  If you want to see if you have junk in a
>> file it's a lot nicer than "od -c".  And what's so terrible about "ls -C"?
 ...
>For an explanation of why "one program, one function, done well" is a good
>way to build a system, see almost any discussion of the "Unix philosophy".
>Try Kernighan & Pike.

er .... read the earlier book "Software Tools".

They talk all about the "One program, one function, done well" philosophy.
It's very good.  Very nice.  Very reasonable.  I go along with it completely.

But they say one other thing.  "When you have functions which are commonly
done together then why not put them into one program."

For instance.  sort(1) didn't always do the function of uniq.  But now
it does because they were commonly done together.

But ... you have to judge each case carefully.

In the case of cat -v, it really does produce more readable output.  At
least for some cases.  But it's output isn't very usable (You can't convert
it back into the input file for instance).  With od -c you COULD write
a program to convert the output back into the input.  It really depends
what you are wanting to do with the output.

In the case of ls -C, you have some qualitative gains.  ls -C is able to
optimise the formatting.  And it IS a lot more useful than having
to type the ls | mc string.

On the other hand, it's signs of "creeping featurism", a particularly
nasty form of cancer which spawns such monstrosities as EMACS and VMS
and the like.

	HACKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

	YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR MLISP!

		:-)
-- 
--- David Herron
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