Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!pyramid!prls!mips!redbob From: redbob@mips.UUCP (Robert A. Knox) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: fubar is not a vegetable Message-ID: <853@mips.UUCP> Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 14:21:00 EST Article-I.D.: mips.853 Posted: Thu Oct 29 14:21:00 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 4-Nov-87 01:47:54 EST References: <585@dragon.UUCP> Reply-To: redbob@mips.UUCP (Robert A. Knox) Distribution: na Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 23 In article <585@dragon.UUCP> charles@dragon.UUCP (Charles Wolff, x3432) writes: >Since Comp.unix.wizards is currently a discussion of favorite variable >names, I'll mention the "fruits convention" a friend and I came up with >while teaching a bunch of novice users the rudiments of IBM jcl. The >convention was that, anywhere we used the name of a fruit in an example, >it mean you could use any (syntactically correct) name you wanted. > I used to do almost exactly the same thing. When helping new users at Purdue on the CDC systems, I used animal names instead of fruits. It really did seem to help them figure out that they were able to call a file anything they wanted. (Also, when it came to cleaning up a directory, I knew it was safe to blow away "horse", "fish", and "dog".) This worked fine until I got to UNIX. Unfortunately, one of the most commonly used commands on UNIX IS an animal name. ("But, Mr. Consultant, what does `cat cat` mean?") ^G^G RedBob -- Robert Knox DISCLAIMER: UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!redbob DDD: 408-720-1700, x287 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086