NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/lang/c++-part2/13615

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 3.7 KB

Path: keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca!not-for-mail
From: [e-mail] (Kazimir Kylheku)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.object,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Portability of code & skills (Beware of "C" Hackers etc)
Followup-To: alt.flame,comp.unix.advocacy
Date: 26 Mar 1996 07:41:53 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <4isfcu$[e-mail]> <4j6c48$[e-mail]> <4j91h2$[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca

In article <4j91h2$[e-mail]>, Joe Budge <[e-mail]> wrote:
>In article <4j6c48$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] says...
>>
>>In article <4isfcu$[e-mail]>,
>>Ralph Cook wrote:
>
>>As for "necessity": it is not necessary to name the list files command
>>"ls", the help function "man", the print function "lp", and the editor
>"vi". It is not and was never necessary to limit options to single case-
>>sensitive letters so that you have to remember all the magic mumbles
>>to do your work.  It is not necessary to give "cute" names to things
>>(say, "set noclobber").  These things don't save enough space to be
>>worth mentioning, even on the old 8-bit machines.  I don't believe
>>that's why it was done; do you have any evidence?  Would it have
>>taxed those early systems if the "ls" command had been named, say,
>>"list"?  Or "dir"?
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>I'm sorry, but your argument that it was necessary on limited machines
>>doesn't hold water.  Can you come up with anything better?
>
>
>You came into the show too late and missed the opening act.  When
>Unix and C were first written reconditioned Western Union teletypes
>were still common interactive interfaces for computers.  These
>beasts were slow (110 baud or lower), loud, and consumed paper and
>ribbons at phenomenal rates when you were programming on a budget.

Not to mention that hitting a keystroke causes an interrupt, and the passing of
control from whatever task is running to the tty code in the kernel. With a lot
of tty's clucking away against a slow machine, the overhead does add up.

In any case, even on a fast terminal emulator, I wouldn't want to be typing a
four or five character command when I can type a two character command. My
_peak_ typing speed is roughly equivalent to 300 baud, in bursts. As proof that
the desire to have short commands is not entirely related to ancient concerns
about efficiency, I know people who alias common commands to even
shorter one-letter names: e to summon the editor, l for ls and so forth.

You cannot come up with a rational argument about why a directory listing
command should be called "ls" or anything else. But you have to call it
_something_. The creators named it "ls", and it stuck. For every buffoon who
wants to see it renamed to "dir" (equially impossible to justify rationally),
there are thousands of UNIX users who would loathe to see it renamed to
something else.

Let's not forget that not all operating system users are English speakers,
even. The abbreviation "dir" is just about as meaningless as "ls", or "list" to
someone speaking Swahili. Why should we adopt Anglo-centric commands?

Cryptic shortcuts are equally unfair to everyone: this is the basic premise of
democracy, is it not? :)

>For better or for worse, Unix elected to maintain compatibility
>throughout its lifespan so we still have commands based on that way
>of thinking.  Of course some of the more recent additions to the

That's right. And these commands are part of an international standard, for
better or for worse.

Anyway, this thread is off topic in _every_ newsgroup it is cross-posted to, so
I'm going to redirect it away.
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