Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 01:08:18 -0400 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: bv@wjv.com, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Adding a 'D - Date' option to 'cat' Message-ID: <p0623094ac12557db4b8f@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20060907030913.GN87762@wjv.com> References: <20060906120042.9E9DB16A532@hub.freebsd.org> <20060907030913.GN87762@wjv.com>
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At 11:09 PM -0400 9/6/06, Bill Vermillion wrote: > >That's pretty much the basic Unix philosophy - a lot of small >programs that can be chained together to do almost anything you can >imagine, instead of putting all the POSSIBLE needed options into >each program that MAY or MAY NOT need it. Well, the proposed option to `cat' is already dead, but just as an aside: Notice what happens when some issue like this comes up. The unix philosophy is supposedly to champion lots of small utility programs. An issue like Julian's comes up, where no *small*, well-designed utility can get the job done. What does everyone suggest? Why, "Just load up a turing-complete multi-megabyte executable like Perl [which FreeBSD won't even include in the base OS because it's too much of a hassle], and then write/debug your own perl script which can handle your job!". Uh, perl is not a small utility program. The fact is that unix doesn't really deliver on it's own philosophy. Unix wizards constantly punt user questions off to *massive* programs which have a billion options. There is something very inconsistent in that. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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