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From: gandalf@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Juergen Wagner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: suggest solutions for "rm *"
Message-ID: <791@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 24-Nov-87 02:09:35 EST
Article-I.D.: russell.791
Posted: Tue Nov 24 02:09:35 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Nov-87 00:33:27 EST
References: <5715@j.cc.purdue.edu> <911@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Reply-To: gandalf@russell.stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner)
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 15
Keywords: human factors, interfaces, shells, DWIM

After this quite long discussion about "rm" and its various options,
possible extensions, and other features to be added, it seems to me
that all we need is a DWIM (Do What I Mean) as LISP machine users 
know and love (:-) it. "Do what *I* mean" is (of course) a matter of
perspective - in fact, often the system does what *IT* means. Does
anybody out there have any references to such a beast? I am thinking
of an ish ("intelligent shell") doing filename completion based on the
search path, spelling correction on file/directory names, allow to edit
previously typed-in lines, redo commands in a simpler fashion than csh,
and other fancy things.

Please, respond by e-mail. I will post a summary.

--Juergen Wagner			(gandalf@Russell.Stanford.edu)
Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University