Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:39:08 -0700 From: Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> To: Sam Leffler <sam@errno.com> Cc: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, Garance A Drosehn <gad@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Adding a '-D date' option to `cat' Message-ID: <44FDEE7C.9060104@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <44FD994C.70104@errno.com> References: <200608281545.k7SFjn6l063922@lurza.secnetix.de> <p06230928c11e2298ca97@[128.113.24.47]> <200609020956.54008.Lucas.James@ldjcs.com.au> <20060902031247.GE749@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <20060904192006.GA3292@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <p06230937c122c6983e00@[128.113.24.47]> <44FD994C.70104@errno.com>
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Sam Leffler wrote:
> I have ignored all the subsequent postings about modifying date to add
> completely new functionality that is utterly unrelated to it's purpose
> in life. From the looks of this posting it appears you've chosen cat as
> the new victim for this functionality. This again is wrong; cat is a
> filter that concatenates streams of data and does not modify their contents.
>
> I think committing any changes of the sort are wrong-headed and totally
> contrary to the way UNIX was designed. If you want a program that acts
> as a filter and adds a timestamp to each line of input it receives
> create a new one. I even have a name for this program: stamp.
I agree with Sam on all points here. Please stop trying to bastardize well
known tools with well known feature sets. If you want something new and
unique, make it really new, and unique.
Doug
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