12 May
2024
12 May
'24
1:24 a.m.
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 7:23 PM Nevin Liber <nliber(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 11:37 AM Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Chapter 1, Page 15 of Kernigahan and Pike -- "The Unix Programming
Environment"
It's still the best book for learning, regardless if Linux is your
preferred UNIX implementation.
The key is that not all "bloat" is the
same (really)—or maybe one
person's bloat is another person's preference.
A lot of "bloat" comes because our systems really aren't focused on
"discoverability".
While I probably have used "pr" in the past, I've totally forgotten, the
name "pr" doesn't really help me understand what it is for, and it's
just
one of 982 files in my /usr/bin directory alone. How does one discover it?
It's like using "sed" instead of "head": sure, if you already
know "sed",
you don't need "head", but for English speaking folks who know
"tail" is
there, it would be (and was in the old days) surprising and frustrating not
to have "head".
Hmmm.. date on 1BSD tape for head is Nov 23, 1977. It's been around since
the Sixth Edition.
And again - this is my observation - some tools are easier to use, and the
head is easier than a sed script. One can argue a shell script that exec's
sed for you would have been sufficient to Joy's program.
However, in wnj's defense, he wrote it for sed was not part of the Sixth
Edition.