On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 7:23 PM Nevin Liber wrote: > On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 11:37 AM Clem Cole wrote: > >> The key is that not all "bloat" is the same (really)—or maybe one >> person's bloat is another person's preference. >> > > A lot of "bloat" comes because our systems really aren't focused on > "discoverability". > > While I probably have used "pr" in the past, I've totally forgotten, the > name "pr" doesn't really help me understand what it is for, and it's just > one of 982 files in my /usr/bin directory alone. How does one discover it? > Chapter 1, Page 15 of Kernigahan and Pike -- "The Unix Programming Environment" It's still the best book for learning, regardless if Linux is your preferred UNIX implementation. > > It's like using "sed" instead of "head": sure, if you already know "sed", > you don't need "head", but for English speaking folks who know "tail" is > there, it would be (and was in the old days) surprising and frustrating not > to have "head". > Hmmm.. date on 1BSD tape for head is Nov 23, 1977. It's been around since the Sixth Edition. And again - this is my observation - some tools are easier to use, and the head is easier than a sed script. One can argue a shell script that exec's sed for you would have been sufficient to Joy's program. However, in wnj's defense, he wrote it for sed was not part of the Sixth Edition.