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- Path: hal.COM!spike
- From: spike@hal.com (Spike White)
- 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: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.object,comp.software-eng
- Date: 28 Mar 1996 00:05:16 GMT
- Organization: HAL Computer Systems, Inc.
- Message-ID: <4jcl3t$hma@news.hal.com>
- References: <4ikb6kINN1is@mayne.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca> <3150415E.6396@sdt.com> <4ip5om$s9@bughouse.imonics.com> <4isfcu$p09@news1.mnsinc.com> <4j6c48$4mr@bughouse.imonics.com> <4j7i0e$b7k@news1.mnsinc.com> <827811879snz@tsys.demon.co.uk>
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-
- Tom Wheeley (tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk) wrote:
- : > : 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
-
- : Unfortuately, the computer world is becoming `cuter' by the minute. Just
- : look at MS Bob.
-
- : > : 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"?
-
- : It was probably designed to be quick to type or something. I doubt they
- : decided on `ls' instead of `list' to save memory or time. Remember that
- : unix command lines often have lots of commands on them, you don't want to
- : be typing forever.
-
- I've read it was designed to work reasonably fast over slow (120 baud?)
- teletypes. I believe it -- I used to administer SVR3 systems and there
- were still some initial login peculiarities ("from time immemorial") that
- were intended to support teletypes. BTW, at least some of the teletypes
- didn't have uppercase or lowercase -- just one case.
-
- : Oh, remember that the C language was designed with such memory constraints
- : in mind. (Memory was v. expensive then).
-
- And bandwidth even more so.
-
- : > : I think part of it is blindness -- I think those people honestly think
- : > : that, if an abbreviation is good enough for them, it is good enough for
- : > : everyone.
-
- No, it was a reasonable solution to a problem that no longer exists.
-
- : > : That's why the namespace for Unix commands is such a bloody
- : > : mess. They couldn't even keep consistent within their own commands;
- : > : "cd" for "change directory", but "pwd" for "print working directory".
-
- : I'm surprised you didn't mention `mkdir' too. :)
-
- : > upon you. While not always effective, a good programmer just consciously
- : > and unconsciously save space.
-
- It wasn't to save space, it was to save extraneous chars over extremely slow
- serial and modem lines.
-
- : > It's really only in the 80s that we had
- : > the luxury to say, "who cares, it's just a few more bytes".
-
- : And just look at the size of today's applications :(
-
- Yeah, my poor 14.4K modem suffers when I download these pigs or surf the web.
- I think I'm back to square one.
-
- --
- Spike White | spike@hal.com | Biker Nerds
- HaL Software Systems | '87 BMW K75S, DoD #1347 | From HaL
- Austin, TX | http://www.halsoft.com/users/spike/index.html
- Disclaimer: HaL, want me to speak for you? No, Dave...
-