Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!encore!bzs
From: bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: friendly messages
Message-ID: <4969@xenna.Encore.COM>
Date: 23 Feb 89 20:34:37 GMT
References: <435@laic.UUCP> <955@auspex.UUCP> <9218@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <5734@bsu-cs.UUCP> <90507@sun.uucp> <22569@ism780c.isc.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 34
In-reply-to: patrick@ism780c.isc.com's message of 21 Feb 89 22:02:41 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.15 of Tue Jun  9 1987 on xenna (berkeley-unix)


>The result is a much cleaner interface; users know how to invoke
>programs, how to get help while using them, and how to interpret the
>messages they produce.  Sounds to me like a big win over the current
>state of affairs in the UNIX world.  The sooner we implement something
>similar, the sooner we'll be taken seriously in the real world where
>people run applications rather than hack software.
>
>Patrick Curran (uunet!ism780c!patrick)

You miss the whole point of Unix's terseness.

The point is that the output of one command is intended to be useful
as the input of another command, or, the terminal.

It's not a "user-friendly" issue or decision, it's a productivity
decision.  VMS doesn't have pipes and often produces output its other
programs can't read anyhow, due to the zillions of RMS file format
mismatches (even if you manage to figure out how to save it to a file,
no I/O redirection) so it's comparing apples and oranges, who cares if
it's full of "RMS-I-EVERYTHING-A-OK" messages, it's just zipping off
the screen anyhow (no piping to "more" either, lovely, user-friendly
system, zip zip zip...what was that?) It's nice to hear there's some
way to shut it up but that really begs the point (ie. the design of
VMS.)

Being as VMS never considered the output of its programs very useful
they felt free to babble whatever they wanted and generally make it
impossible to ever parse up.  In unix the designers preferred the
output of programs to be useful.

I realize people find this point aggravatingly subtle.

	-Barry "Keen Eye for the Obvious" Shein, ||Encore||