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Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 10:52:47 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Royce Williams <royce@tycho.org>
Subject: Re: /etc/motd update
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On Sun, 7 Sep 2014, Royce Williams wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 5:49 AM, Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> wrote:
>>
>> Based on feedback from -arch, now there is a version that uses only harmless, inoffensive ASCII whitespace to delimit the commands:
>>
>> http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.whitespace
>
> Not to bikeshed overmuch, but such usage of extra whitespace seems
> odd/rare, and harms readability.
>
> If the intent is to help new users get oriented, it doesn't serve the
> intended purpose, IMO.
>
> Better to offset with quotes or something:
>
> Other questions or problems can be emailed to the questions@FreeBSD.org
> mailing list.  Please include the output of "uname -a" and any relevant
> error messages.  The "man man" command gives an introduction to manual
> pages, and hier(7) describes the FreeBSD directory layout.

This is pretty much what we have now:

   % `uname -a'
   Unmatched `.
   % "man man"
   man man: Command not found.

The goal is to give a new user literal commands that do not need 
interpretation.  I was surprised at how subtly the double spaces showed 
that the command was separate from the rest of the text.  It's not 
ideal, but there is a serious lack of options in plain ASCII.