I wasn't directly involved in this, but I do remember Dennis telling me essentially the same story. I don't recall him mentioning Ken's name, just that "we couldn't use
od because that was already taken".
Steve B and I had adjacent offices, so I overheard a lot of the discussions about the Bourne shell. The quoting mechanisms, in particular, got a lot of attention, I think to good end. There was a lot more thought there than is evident from the surface...
Steve (not Bourne)
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Sun, 08 Jan 2017 21:30:03 -0500
Subject:
Re: [TUHS] Unix stories, Stephen Bourne and IF-FI in C code
Doug McIlroy:
There was some pushback which resulted in the strange compromise
of if-fi, case-esac, do-done. Alas, the details have slipped from
memory. Help, scj?
====
do-od would have required renaming the long-tenured od(1).
I remember a tale--possibly chat in the UNIX Room at one point in
the latter 1980s--that Steve tried and tried and tried to convince
Ken to rename od, in the name of symmetry and elegance. Ken simply
said no, as many times as it took. I don't remember who I heard this
from; anyone still in touch with Ken who can ask him?
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON