Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:9085 comp.unix.wizards:7667
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: command line options
Message-ID: <7639@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 9 Apr 88 22:59:28 GMT
References: <2414@zyx.UUCP> <8039@elsie.UUCP> <7628@brl-smoke.ARPA> <143@gsg.UUCP> <7634@brl-smoke.ARPA> <21370@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 16

In article <21370@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>Oh, brilliant idea. I just tried it under bourne shell and if you
>happen to have a file that starts with a dash then you lose also as it
>expands. Nothing like magical behavior in a HELP command...
>	..hmm, lessee, how do I get rid of this stupid file "-r"
>	in my directory? guess I'll just use help...oops...
>lose lose. My candidate for this year's cream-pie-in-the face award
>for dumb user interface designs.

Maybe there is no such thing as a good interface for dumb users.

Or perhaps dumb users should be encouraged to put '' around EVERY
argument to every command, since they don't know what is a special
shell metacharacter and what isn't.

Personally I don't keep files around with names starting with -.