[COFF] Re: On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools

Hi, Learning of pr can also be done by reading Kernighan and Plauger's ‘Software tools’. There, it's called print and is more basic but a variety of enhancements are listed. They then write: When you write a program, there is a great temptation to add more and more ‘features’ like these, little things that it will do for you. But beware -- unless the features work together in a uniform way, the result is going to be a grab-bag of unrelated capabilities, most of which won't get used because nobody can remember them. If you have to look up how to use a program for even the simplest applications, you know you've gone too far. When in doubt, treat ‘feature’ as a pejorative. (Think of a hundred-bladed Swiss army knife.) From memory, I think all of the significant programs written in that book have an early Unix ancestor. -- Cheers, Ralph.