[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com>

    > Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny
    > disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33
    > for input?

I'm not sure the answer was ever written down (e.g. in a memo); we will
probably have to rely on memory - and memories that far back are now fairly
thin on the ground by now. Perhaps Mr. McIlroy (or Mr. Thompson, if we're
_really_ lucky) will humor us? :-)


I have the impression that some of the names are _possibly_ inherited from
Multics (which the early Unicians all used before Unix existed) - but maybe
not. The command to list a directory, on Multics, is 'ls' (but see below) -
but the Multics qcommand to remove a file is 'del' (not 'rm'); and change working
directory is 'cwd'. So maybe ls' is just chance?

Multics had a 'feature' where a segment (file) could have additional names (to
the main name), and this is used to add short aliases to many commands, so the
'base name'' for the directory list command is 'list'; 'ls' is a short
alias. A list of Multics commands (with short forms) is available here:

  https://www.multicians.org/multics-commands.html

I'm not sure how early that alias mechanism came in, though; my copy of
"Introduction to Multics" (February, 1974) doesn't have short names (or, at
least, it doesn't use them).


It won't have anything to do with disk and memory. Having used a Teletype, it
 would take noticeably longer to type in a longer name! It's also more effort
 and time. I would expect those are the reasons for the short names.

	Noel

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS]

i doubt there is a fully satisfactory answer. dd was a jab at IBM JCL.
Several later commands were derived from earlier ones, like sed and
tar. And awk ...

I think the one that needs more explaining is grep. If brevity were
the sole criterion, it could have been shorter.

On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 5:49 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     > From: Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com>
>
>     > Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny
>     > disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33
>     > for input?
>
> I'm not sure the answer was ever written down (e.g. in a memo); we will
> probably have to rely on memory - and memories that far back are now fairly
> thin on the ground by now. Perhaps Mr. McIlroy (or Mr. Thompson, if we're
> _really_ lucky) will humor us? :-)
>
>
> I have the impression that some of the names are _possibly_ inherited from
> Multics (which the early Unicians all used before Unix existed) - but maybe
> not. The command to list a directory, on Multics, is 'ls' (but see below) -
> but the Multics qcommand to remove a file is 'del' (not 'rm'); and change working
> directory is 'cwd'. So maybe ls' is just chance?
>
> Multics had a 'feature' where a segment (file) could have additional names (to
> the main name), and this is used to add short aliases to many commands, so the
> 'base name'' for the directory list command is 'list'; 'ls' is a short
> alias. A list of Multics commands (with short forms) is available here:
>
>   https://www.multicians.org/multics-commands.html
>
> I'm not sure how early that alias mechanism came in, though; my copy of
> "Introduction to Multics" (February, 1974) doesn't have short names (or, at
> least, it doesn't use them).
>
>
> It won't have anything to do with disk and memory. Having used a Teletype, it
>  would take noticeably longer to type in a longer name! It's also more effort
>  and time. I would expect those are the reasons for the short names.
>
>         Noel

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
obviously easiest "dd <foo".

It's a counterargument to my understanding of why people prefer "cat foo |
cmd" to "cmd <foo" or "<foo cmd". There's a psych thesis in there somewhere.

-rob


On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 8:01 AM Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS <
tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> i doubt there is a fully satisfactory answer. dd was a jab at IBM JCL.
> Several later commands were derived from earlier ones, like sed and
> tar. And awk ...
>
> I think the one that needs more explaining is grep. If brevity were
> the sole criterion, it could have been shorter.
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 5:49 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> >     > From: Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com>
> >
> >     > Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the
> tiny
> >     > disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype
> 33
> >     > for input?
> >
> > I'm not sure the answer was ever written down (e.g. in a memo); we will
> > probably have to rely on memory - and memories that far back are now
> fairly
> > thin on the ground by now. Perhaps Mr. McIlroy (or Mr. Thompson, if we're
> > _really_ lucky) will humor us? :-)
> >
> >
> > I have the impression that some of the names are _possibly_ inherited
> from
> > Multics (which the early Unicians all used before Unix existed) - but
> maybe
> > not. The command to list a directory, on Multics, is 'ls' (but see
> below) -
> > but the Multics qcommand to remove a file is 'del' (not 'rm'); and
> change working
> > directory is 'cwd'. So maybe ls' is just chance?
> >
> > Multics had a 'feature' where a segment (file) could have additional
> names (to
> > the main name), and this is used to add short aliases to many commands,
> so the
> > 'base name'' for the directory list command is 'list'; 'ls' is a short
> > alias. A list of Multics commands (with short forms) is available here:
> >
> >   https://www.multicians.org/multics-commands.html
> >
> > I'm not sure how early that alias mechanism came in, though; my copy of
> > "Introduction to Multics" (February, 1974) doesn't have short names (or,
> at
> > least, it doesn't use them).
> >
> >
> > It won't have anything to do with disk and memory. Having used a
> Teletype, it
> >  would take noticeably longer to type in a longer name! It's also more
> effort
> >  and time. I would expect those are the reasons for the short names.
> >
> >         Noel
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 08:15:34AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
> notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
> That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
> obviously easiest "dd <foo".

Muscle memory.  dd is weird but you sort of get used to it and then just
do it how you always have.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> I think the one that needs more explaining is grep. If brevity were
> the sole criterion, it could have been shorter.

First, it was mnemonic for the ed(1) syntax g/re/p, and second
have a vowel in it (instead of calling it grp) made it easily
pronounceable.

I also suspect that at this point we're overthinking it. :-)

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Adam Thornton]

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You know, this is a place that might actually be able to provide a
definitive answer to me.  A brief web search found me asking the same
question in 1995.

When I were a wee lad, I was told `dd` was short for `do DEBE`, which,
while obviously referencing a well-known movie about a Northern Texas
sports team and their most enthusiastic fan, also referred to the mainframe
software whose name was an acronym for `Does Everything But Eat` and whose
function was to copy data across sources with very different blocking and
representation conventions...which is kinda what `dd` does.

Can anyone here confirm or deny that origin for the utility's name?

Adam

On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 3:36 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 08:15:34AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the
> JCL
> > notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
> > That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
> > obviously easiest "dd <foo".
>
> Muscle memory.  dd is weird but you sort of get used to it and then just
> do it how you always have.
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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I was told it's IBMese: Define Dataset.

-rob


On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 2:01 PM Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com> wrote:

> You know, this is a place that might actually be able to provide a
> definitive answer to me.  A brief web search found me asking the same
> question in 1995.
>
> When I were a wee lad, I was told `dd` was short for `do DEBE`, which,
> while obviously referencing a well-known movie about a Northern Texas
> sports team and their most enthusiastic fan, also referred to the mainframe
> software whose name was an acronym for `Does Everything But Eat` and whose
> function was to copy data across sources with very different blocking and
> representation conventions...which is kinda what `dd` does.
>
> Can anyone here confirm or deny that origin for the utility's name?
>
> Adam
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 3:36 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 08:15:34AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
>> > For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the
>> JCL
>> > notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
>> > That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
>> > obviously easiest "dd <foo".
>>
>> Muscle memory.  dd is weird but you sort of get used to it and then just
>> do it how you always have.
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, 16 Sept 2024 at 00:11, Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com> wrote:

> You know, this is a place that might actually be able to provide a
> definitive answer to me.  A brief web search found me asking the same
> question in 1995.
>
> When I were a wee lad, I was told `dd` was short for `do DEBE`, which,
> while obviously referencing a well-known movie about a Northern Texas
> sports team and their most enthusiastic fan, also referred to the mainframe
> software whose name was an acronym for `Does Everything But Eat` and whose
> function was to copy data across sources with very different blocking and
> representation conventions...which is kinda what `dd` does.
>
> Can anyone here confirm or deny that origin for the utility's name?
>
>
I looked through a broad swath of dd source files and man pages from v5 to
System III and SVR4, the BSD SCCS tree, various commercial UNIXes, modern
BSDs, and modern Linux but none of them have any sort of explanation of the
name.  I figured I'd at least find something!

It is the case that many places refer to the command's function as "convert
and copy," so I wonder if it's some sort of play on the fact that the
expected name of the command might be "cc".

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dave Horsfall]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Rob Pike wrote:

[ The origin of the "dd" command ]

> I was told it's IBMese: Define Dataset.

Straight from IBM's JCL (Job Control Language); heck, I still remember 
obscure things like "DISP=(,KEEP)" etc...

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Tom Lyon]

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According to GC28-6704-1, IBM System/360 Operating System: Job Control
Language Reference,
DD means "Data Definition". Bitsavers knows all.

On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 10:15 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Rob Pike wrote:
>
> [ The origin of the "dd" command ]
>
> > I was told it's IBMese: Define Dataset.
>
> Straight from IBM's JCL (Job Control Language); heck, I still remember
> obscure things like "DISP=(,KEEP)" etc...
>
> -- Dave
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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James Gosling used this idiomatic  JCL command (see loop body) in something
or other, and Brian and I borrowed it (with attribution) for the bundle
command in our book.

% cat /usr/local/plan9/bin/bundle

#!/bin/sh

echo '# To unbundle, run this file'

for i

do

echo "echo $i"

echo "sed 's/.//' >$i <<'//GO.SYSIN DD $i'"

sed "s/^/-/" $i

echo "//GO.SYSIN DD $i"

done

%


-rob

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 3:31 PM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Sept 2024 at 00:11, Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You know, this is a place that might actually be able to provide a
>> definitive answer to me.  A brief web search found me asking the same
>> question in 1995.
>>
>> When I were a wee lad, I was told `dd` was short for `do DEBE`, which,
>> while obviously referencing a well-known movie about a Northern Texas
>> sports team and their most enthusiastic fan, also referred to the mainframe
>> software whose name was an acronym for `Does Everything But Eat` and whose
>> function was to copy data across sources with very different blocking and
>> representation conventions...which is kinda what `dd` does.
>>
>> Can anyone here confirm or deny that origin for the utility's name?
>>
>>
> I looked through a broad swath of dd source files and man pages from v5 to
> System III and SVR4, the BSD SCCS tree, various commercial UNIXes, modern
> BSDs, and modern Linux but none of them have any sort of explanation of the
> name.  I figured I'd at least find something!
>
> It is the case that many places refer to the command's function as
> "convert and copy," so I wonder if it's some sort of play on the fact that
> the expected name of the command might be "cc".
>
> -Henry
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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One man's "data definition" is another's "define dataset" remembered
faintly from 50 years ago.

-rob


On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 6:11 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78@gmail.com> wrote:

> According to GC28-6704-1, IBM System/360 Operating System: Job Control
> Language Reference,
> DD means "Data Definition". Bitsavers knows all.
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 10:15 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Rob Pike wrote:
>>
>> [ The origin of the "dd" command ]
>>
>> > I was told it's IBMese: Define Dataset.
>>
>> Straight from IBM's JCL (Job Control Language); heck, I still remember
>> obscure things like "DISP=(,KEEP)" etc...
>>
>> -- Dave
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)]

Rob Pike writes:

> For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
> notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
> That is, people prefer "dd if=3Dfoo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
> obviously easiest "dd <foo".

Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
mode.

And don't tell me you have never put a copy of dd in the root
directory just so you could tell someone to

	/dd if=...    :-)

--lyndon

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Bakul Shah via TUHS]

> On Sep 16, 2024, at 3:50 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> 
> Rob Pike writes:
> 
>> For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
>> notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
>> That is, people prefer "dd if=3Dfoo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
>> obviously easiest "dd <foo".
> 
> Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
> the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
> mode.

It has to be DD, not dd!

> And don't tell me you have never put a copy of dd in the root
> directory just so you could tell someone to
> 
> /dd if=...    :-)

That won't work. The data definition JCL statement format
is more like this:

//<name> DD <parameters>
optionally continued by one or more of
//<spaces> DD <parameters>
...

:-)

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dave Horsfall]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:

> Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50, the 
> moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL mode.

Indeed, but no "dd" I know has "-if" etc; is that a Penguin thing?

> And don't tell me you have never put a copy of dd in the root directory 
> just so you could tell someone to
> 
> 	/dd if=...    :-)

Better still: //dd ...

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Larry McVoy]

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 09:16:17AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> 
> > Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50, the 
> > moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL mode.
> 
> Indeed, but no "dd" I know has "-if" etc; is that a Penguin thing?

Not a penguin thing on current xubuntu.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Monday, September 16th, 2024 at 4:24 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 09:16:17AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> > 
> > > Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50, the
> > > moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL mode.
> > 
> > Indeed, but no "dd" I know has "-if" etc; is that a Penguin thing?
> 
> 
> Not a penguin thing on current xubuntu.

Never seen that either, POSIX doesn't suggest any support for that either, with this in the RATIONALE section:

---QUOTE---

The OPTIONS section is listed as "None" because there are no options recognized by historical dd utilities. Certainly, many of the operands could have been designed to use the Utility Syntax Guidelines, which would have resulted in the classic hyphenated option letters. In this version of this volume of POSIX.1-2024, dd retains its curious JCL-like syntax due to the large number of applications that depend on the historical implementation.

---END QUOTE---

- Matt G.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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I don't remember whether late Research Unix had -if, but Plan 9 certainly
did.

-rob


On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 10:06 AM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> On Monday, September 16th, 2024 at 4:24 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 09:16:17AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> > >
> > > > Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
> the
> > > > moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL mode.
> > >
> > > Indeed, but no "dd" I know has "-if" etc; is that a Penguin thing?
> >
> >
> > Not a penguin thing on current xubuntu.
>
> Never seen that either, POSIX doesn't suggest any support for that either,
> with this in the RATIONALE section:
>
> ---QUOTE---
>
> The OPTIONS section is listed as "None" because there are no options
> recognized by historical dd utilities. Certainly, many of the operands
> could have been designed to use the Utility Syntax Guidelines, which would
> have resulted in the classic hyphenated option letters. In this version of
> this volume of POSIX.1-2024, dd retains its curious JCL-like syntax due to
> the large number of applications that depend on the historical
> implementation.
>
> ---END QUOTE---
>
> - Matt G.
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)]

Bakul Shah writes:

> > /dd if=...    :-)
>
> That won't work. The data definition JCL statement format
> is more like this:
>
> //<name> DD <parameters>

Yeah, I know. But you can get away with '//dd if= ...' which
was more than enough to give some old timers whiplash the
first time they saw that on a UNIX box :-)

--lyndon

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

I think it was only Plan 9. The change was motivated by the
rc shell, which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just
at the beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.

(For a while I used Byron's rc. I was used to typing

	echo ===============

to generate separator lines. rc threw a syntax error at me. :-)

Arnold

Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't remember whether late Research Unix had -if, but Plan 9 certainly
> did.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 10:06 AM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> > On Monday, September 16th, 2024 at 4:24 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 09:16:17AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
> > the
> > > > > moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL mode.
> > > >
> > > > Indeed, but no "dd" I know has "-if" etc; is that a Penguin thing?
> > >
> > >
> > > Not a penguin thing on current xubuntu.
> >
> > Never seen that either, POSIX doesn't suggest any support for that either,
> > with this in the RATIONALE section:
> >
> > ---QUOTE---
> >
> > The OPTIONS section is listed as "None" because there are no options
> > recognized by historical dd utilities. Certainly, many of the operands
> > could have been designed to use the Utility Syntax Guidelines, which would
> > have resulted in the classic hyphenated option letters. In this version of
> > this volume of POSIX.1-2024, dd retains its curious JCL-like syntax due to
> > the large number of applications that depend on the historical
> > implementation.
> >
> > ---END QUOTE---
> >
> > - Matt G.
> >

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

"Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)" <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:

> Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
> the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
> mode.

I am (considerably) over 50, but was fortunate enough to never have
to have used JCL.  After a two year hiatus for religious studies,
I returned to my university for my senior year and encountered
Unix (IS/1 on a PDP-11/70), C, and Software Tools. It was sooooo far
ahead of everything else that I knew then that's where I wanted
to spend my career.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Tue, 17 Sept 2024 at 02:00, <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> "Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)" <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
>
> > Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
> > the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
> > mode.
>
> I am (considerably) over 50, but was fortunate enough to never have
> to have used JCL.  After a two year hiatus for religious studies,
> I returned to my university for my senior year and encountered
> Unix (IS/1 on a PDP-11/70), C, and Software Tools. It was sooooo far
> ahead of everything else that I knew then that's where I wanted
> to spend my career.
>

In the liberal arts world where my background is, IBMs were not a sure
thing.  My alma mater was a DEC shop top to bottom starting in the early
'70s.  The psychology department had a PDP-12, I believe the natural and
computer sciences had a few 8s and 11s (and CS later an 11/750), and I know
that the "computing center" (mostly administrativa) got an 11/780 pretty
much as soon as they could.  When I got there everything was still all DEC,
VMS for the computing center (a 6620 clustered with some smaller boxes,
also serving email and news) and mostly Ultrix on MIPS for the sciences.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Alexander Schreiber]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 08:15:34AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
> notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
> That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
> obviously easiest "dd <foo".

Wait, when did that happen? And more importantly, _where_?

The GNU Coreutils version (according to both --help and the man page)
only appears to support the JCL convention and in fact complains and
aborts when fed Unix style arguments. The NetBSD version behaves the
same way.

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Larry McVoy]

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 10:25:04PM +0200, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 08:15:34AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > For me the fascinating thing about dd is that people tended to use the JCL
> > notation for its arguments even after the Unix style was made available.
> > That is, people prefer "dd if=foo" rather than "dd -if foo" or even the
> > obviously easiest "dd <foo".
> 
> Wait, when did that happen? And more importantly, _where_?
> 
> The GNU Coreutils version (according to both --help and the man page)
> only appears to support the JCL convention and in fact complains and
> aborts when fed Unix style arguments. The NetBSD version behaves the
> same way.

Plan 9.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dave Horsfall]

[ Of "dd -if" ]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:

> I think it was only Plan 9. The change was motivated by the rc shell, 
> which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just at the 
> beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.

That is plain broken, but I can see how it could/would work; something 
like "A=B blah A=C blah"?

> (For a while I used Byron's rc. I was used to typing
> 
> 	echo ===============
> 
> to generate separator lines. rc threw a syntax error at me. :-)

Which is why I've always quoted anything not strictly alphanumeric; you 
never know what the current shell will do (especially if it's CSH[*]).

[*]
At a client's office I espied a book on CSH, and said something like "If 
there's any book that deserves to be burned, it's one on CSH programming"; 
pretty much everyone laughed :-)

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rich Salz]

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>
> > which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just at the
> > beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.
>
> That is plain broken
>

No.  The shell is NOT like sh, bash, etc., that you are used to. Go read
the paper or, better yet, play with a version of it at
https://github.com/rakitzis/rc

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

Rich Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > > which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just at the
> > > beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.
> >
> > That is plain broken
> >
>
> No.  The shell is NOT like sh, bash, etc., that you are used to. Go read
> the paper or, better yet, play with a version of it at
> https://github.com/rakitzis/rc

There is also https://github.com/benavento/rc ; I didn't know that
Byron had made rc available directly.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

Taking a closer look:

https://github.com/benavento/rc --- This is a standalone port of Tom Duff's
original to *nix.

https://github.com/rakitzis/rc --- This is Byron's reimplementation.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

On 9/17/24 9:40 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:

>> The change was motivated by the rc shell,
>> which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just at the
>> beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.
> 
> That is plain broken, 

Unfamiliar, maybe, but even the Bourne shell had `set -k'.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Russ Cox]

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On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 1:55 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> I think it was only Plan 9. The change was motivated by the
> rc shell, which treated x=y anywhere on the command line (not just
> at the beginning of a command) as a variable assignment.
>

I'm a little late to the thread, but this is not quite true.
rc's lexer and grammar treated = as a special
symbol - just like ( or | or & or ; - and so it couldn't
be used as a literal except when quoted.
That is, "foo x=y" was a syntax error, not an equivalent to "x=y foo".

One of the tidyings I did during covid lockdown was to rewrite
rc's parser not to use yacc anymore [1], specifically to make
it easy to allow "foo x=y". As I wrote in the commit message,
dd fans rejoice! (Also fans of -foo=bar flag syntax.)

Best,
Russ

[1] https://groups.google.com/g/plan9port-dev/c/AS8acHti7eo/m/0tZF7h7FBQAJ

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:

> I'm a little late to the thread, but this is not quite true.
> rc's lexer and grammar treated = as a special
> symbol - just like ( or | or & or ; - and so it couldn't
> be used as a literal except when quoted.
> That is, "foo x=y" was a syntax error, not an equivalent to "x=y foo".

OK, distinction noted. It was a long time ago.

> One of the tidyings I did during covid lockdown was to rewrite
> rc's parser not to use yacc anymore [1], specifically to make
> it easy to allow "foo x=y". As I wrote in the commit message,
> dd fans rejoice! (Also fans of -foo=bar flag syntax.)

Very cool. Have other Plan 9 distros picked this up? Just wondering.

Thanks,

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Russ Cox]

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On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 4:17 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> > One of the tidyings I did during covid lockdown was to rewrite
> > rc's parser not to use yacc anymore [1], specifically to make
> > it easy to allow "foo x=y". As I wrote in the commit message,
> > dd fans rejoice! (Also fans of -foo=bar flag syntax.)
>
> Very cool. Have other Plan 9 distros picked this up? Just wondering.


I looked at https://9p.io/plan9/ and also 9front and neither has the change.
I don't think either is particularly maintained at this point.
(I made the change in the Unix port of the tools,
https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/.)

Best,
Russ

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Jacob Moody]

On 9/30/24 07:10, Russ Cox wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 4:17 AM <arnold@skeeve.com <mailto:arnold@skeeve.com>> wrote:
> 
>     > One of the tidyings I did during covid lockdown was to rewrite
>     > rc's parser not to use yacc anymore [1], specifically to make
>     > it easy to allow "foo x=y". As I wrote in the commit message,
>     > dd fans rejoice! (Also fans of -foo=bar flag syntax.)
> 
>     Very cool. Have other Plan 9 distros picked this up? Just wondering.
> 
> 
> I looked at https://9p.io/plan9/ <https://9p.io/plan9/> and also 9front and neither has the change.
> I don't think either is particularly maintained at this point.

Since (and including) 2020, 9front has averaged 700 commits a year to
the project, a very large portion of that being bug fixes and upkeep.
We've also been presenting some of the more interesting new work at
recent IWP9 conferences, now that they've become a yearly occurrence
again thanks to the Plan 9 Foundation.  From my perspective things
have been quite lively lately.

We did take a look at your rc parser changes (closer to when they were
first pushed to plan9port) but had decided not to adopt them at the
time.


Thank you,
Jacob Moody

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Halbert]

On 10/1/24 00:31, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> Dan Halbert wrote:
>> I had used Emacs at MIT as an undergraduate.  Bill would sometimes ask
>> me, "how do they do that in Emacs", or ITS, and then riff on a feature
>> and put it into vi or whatever.  Whether I suggested an "apropos" Unix
>> command or someone wanted something like that, or I said, "sounds like
>> 'apropos' in Emacs", I don't remember.
> I'm curious if you remember any other features that Bill might have
> picked up from Emacs or ITS?  From you or anyone else.
>
> Another interesting example would be job control that was done by Jim
> Kulp.
A lot of the vi visual-mode commands were inspired by emacs, like 
forward/back words, sentences/statements, paragraphs/functions. I 
specifically remember explaining the hierarchy of  ctrl-f, meta-f, 
ctrl-meta-f, etc., and then Bill went off and put in '{' and '}' and 
similar commands. And the "yank" commands were named after ctrl-Y and 
other "yank" commands in emacs. Those are on the 2BSD tape.

Earl Cohen did the "finger" command quite soon after our class of first 
year grad students arrived at UCB. It's in 2BSD.

I did "more" really early (https://danhalbert.org/more.html), but my 
very simple version did not get back into the sources, and the reworked 
"more" that Eric Shienbrood did is in 3BSD but not 2BSD.

Dan

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Dan Halbert wrote:
> I had used Emacs at MIT as an undergraduate.  Bill would sometimes ask
> me, "how do they do that in Emacs", or ITS, and then riff on a feature
> and put it into vi or whatever.  Whether I suggested an "apropos" Unix
> command or someone wanted something like that, or I said, "sounds like
> 'apropos' in Emacs", I don't remember.

I'm curious if you remember any other features that Bill might have
picked up from Emacs or ITS?  From you or anyone else.

Another interesting example would be job control that was done by Jim
Kulp.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Bakul Shah via TUHS]

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Apropos of apropos: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=apropos

etymonline.com is my goto etymological dictionary site. 

> On Sep 30, 2024, at 2:25 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 16:51, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu <mailto:steffen@sdaoden.eu>> wrote:
>> Henry Bent wrote in
>>  <CAEdTPBeK4HOjuiqJPtpneqrDj0CF3=5=jv5aOPjYPBisDkPmyg@mail.gmail.com <mailto:jv5aOPjYPBisDkPmyg@mail.gmail.com>>:
>>  |On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com <mailto:crossd@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>  |> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
>>  |> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
>>  |> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
>>  |> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
>>  |>
>>  |
>>  |Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
>>  |4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
>>  |source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of name.
>> 
>> "a pro position" maybe.  
>> 
>> needs a "pro user" from the start; AI would instead and
>> additionally clean your back i would assume.
> 
> Well, I no longer have institutional access to the full Oxford English Dictionary, but Merriam Webster is happy to provide an extended paragraph (!) on the etymology:
> 
> --
> Apropos wears its ancestry like a badge—or a beret. From the French phrase à propos, meaning “to the purpose,” the word’s emphasis lands on its last syllable, which ends in a silent “s”: \ap-ruh-POH. Apropos typically functions as an adjective describing what is suitable or appropriate (“an apropos comment”), or as a preposition (with or without of) meaning “with regard to,” as in “apropos (of) the decision, implementation will take some time.” The phrase “apropos of nothing” suggests that something does not relate to a specified topic.  
> --
> 
> -Henry


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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Henry Bent wrote in
 <CAEdTPBcGoBDb-r4vkbnqueb397G99XFBthqNMb3h5DaZ0o+gyg@mail.gmail.com>:
 |On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 16:51, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu> wrote:
 |> Henry Bent wrote in
 |>  <CAEdTPBeK4HOjuiqJPtpneqrDj0CF3=5=jv5aOPjYPBisDkPmyg@mail.gmail.com>:
 |>|On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
 |>|> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
 |>|> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
 |>|> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
 |>|> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
 |>|
 |>|Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
 |>|4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
 |>|source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of
 |> name.
 |>
 |> "a pro position" maybe.
 |>
 |> needs a "pro user" from the start; AI would instead and
 |> additionally clean your back i would assume.
 |
 |Well, I no longer have institutional access to the full Oxford English
 |Dictionary, but Merriam Webster is happy to provide an extended paragraph
 |(!) on the etymology:

Oh!  Apropos is known in Germany as a (*that*) word, too, also
commonly heard, even in the (upper) middle class, but sounding
like "apro-poh" here.  Ef "Apropos -- have i already" etc etc.
I was "only leaving of the e of that creat", so to say.
(I am not looking at the online "Duden" because they now require
Javascript and tracking, if i recall correctly.)

 |--
 |*Apropos* wears its ancestry like a badge—or a beret. From the French
 |phrase *à propos*, meaning “to the purpose,” the word’s emphasis lands on
 |its last syllable, which ends in a silent “s”: \ap-ruh-POH. *Apropos*
 |typically functions as an adjective describing what is suitable or
 |appropriate (“an apropos comment”), or as a preposition (with or without
 |*of*) meaning “with regard to,” as in “apropos (of) the decision,
 |implementation will take some time.” The phrase “apropos of nothing”
 |suggests that something does not relate to a specified topic.
 |--
 |
 |-Henry
 --End of <CAEdTPBcGoBDb-r4vkbnqueb397G99XFBthqNMb3h5DaZ0o+gyg@mail.gmail\
 .com>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 16:51, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu> wrote:

> Henry Bent wrote in
>  <CAEdTPBeK4HOjuiqJPtpneqrDj0CF3=5=jv5aOPjYPBisDkPmyg@mail.gmail.com>:
>  |On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>  |> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
>  |> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
>  |> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
>  |> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
>  |>
>  |
>  |Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
>  |4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
>  |source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of
> name.
>
> "a pro position" maybe.
>
> needs a "pro user" from the start; AI would instead and
> additionally clean your back i would assume.
>

Well, I no longer have institutional access to the full Oxford English
Dictionary, but Merriam Webster is happy to provide an extended paragraph
(!) on the etymology:

--
*Apropos* wears its ancestry like a badge—or a beret. From the French
phrase *à propos*, meaning “to the purpose,” the word’s emphasis lands on
its last syllable, which ends in a silent “s”: \ap-ruh-POH. *Apropos*
typically functions as an adjective describing what is suitable or
appropriate (“an apropos comment”), or as a preposition (with or without
*of*) meaning “with regard to,” as in “apropos (of) the decision,
implementation will take some time.” The phrase “apropos of nothing”
suggests that something does not relate to a specified topic.
--

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Henry Bent wrote in
 <CAEdTPBeK4HOjuiqJPtpneqrDj0CF3=5=jv5aOPjYPBisDkPmyg@mail.gmail.com>:
 |On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
 |> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
 |> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
 |> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
 |> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
 |>
 |
 |Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
 |4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
 |source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of name.

"a pro position" maybe.  (Having said that

  #?0|kent:linux$ apropos 'directory list'
  CURLOPT_DIRLISTONLY (3) - ask for names only in a directory listing

vs

  #?0|kent:linux$ apropos 'list directory'
  dir (1)              - list directory contents
  ls (1)               - list directory contents
  ls (1p)              - list directory contents
  vdir (1)             - list directory contents

vs

  #?0|kent:linux$ apropos -a list directory
  chacl (1)            - change the access control list of a file or directory
  CURLOPT_DIRLISTONLY (3) - ask for names only in a directory listing
  dir (1)              - list directory contents
  ls (1)               - list directory contents
  ls (1p)              - list directory contents
  vdir (1)             - list directory contents
vs
  #?0|kent:linux$ apropos -a directory list
  ..same..

needs a "pro user" from the start; AI would instead and
additionally clean your back i would assume.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Clem Cole]

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On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 4:01 PM Dan Halbert <halbert@halwitz.org> wrote:

> I was one of the Berkeley grad students in the office with Bill Joy around
> this time.
>
IIRC Dark curly hair, and I can not think of his name either.
I bet if I saw a picture, I could identify him.  apropos(1) was a great
hack, but I always thought whoever came up with locate(1) really hit the
jackpot.
ᐧ
ᐧ

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 16:01, Dan Halbert <halbert@halwitz.org> wrote:

> On 9/30/24 15:15, Henry Bent wrote:
>
> On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
>> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
>> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
>> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
>>
>
> Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
> 4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
> source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of name.
>
>
> I was one of the Berkeley grad students in the office with Bill Joy around
> this time. I think the name probably  come from the "apropos" command in
> Emacs. That command is mentioned here:
> https://worrydream.com/refs/Stallman_1979_-_EMACS,_The_Extensible,_Customizable,_Self-Documenting_Display_Editor.pdf,
> which is dated June 1979, but the Emacs command existed before that date.
> The Berkeley source code is dated 1979:
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2BSD/src/apropos.c
>
> I had used Emacs at MIT as an undergraduate. Bill would sometimes ask me,
> "how do they do that in Emacs", or ITS, and then riff on a feature and put
> it into vi or whatever. Whether I suggested an "apropos" Unix command or
> someone wanted something like that, or I said, "sounds like 'apropos' in
> Emacs", I don't remember.
>

That definitely tracks with an outlier I turned up in my search of sources,
an "apropos.doc" that appears on the CSRG DVD with the sources for CMU
Emacs.  It's just a list of mappings from commands to keybindings, for
example:

...
delete-next-character        ^D
delete-next-word             ESC-D
delete-other-windows         ^X1
delete-previous-character    ^H
delete-previous-character    RUBOUT
...

I'm not particularly an Emacs person, but it looks like it could be the
output from an "apropos" command, or perhaps the input to it.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Halbert]

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On 9/30/24 15:15, Henry Bent wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>     This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
>     the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
>     listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
>     immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
>
>
> Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the 
> 4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD 
> source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of name.

I was one of the Berkeley grad students in the office with Bill Joy 
around this time. I think the name probably  come from the "apropos" 
command in Emacs. That command is mentioned here: 
https://worrydream.com/refs/Stallman_1979_-_EMACS,_The_Extensible,_Customizable,_Self-Documenting_Display_Editor.pdf, 
which is dated June 1979, but the Emacs command existed before that 
date. The Berkeley source code is dated 1979: 
https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2BSD/src/apropos.c

I had used Emacs at MIT as an undergraduate. Bill would sometimes ask 
me, "how do they do that in Emacs", or ITS, and then riff on a feature 
and put it into vi or whatever. Whether I suggested an "apropos" Unix 
command or someone wanted something like that, or I said, "sounds like 
'apropos' in Emacs", I don't remember.

Dan H

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 14:08, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
> the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
> listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
> immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).
>

Looks like it was introduced in 2BSD, written by Bill Joy, though the
4.4BSD manpage claims that it was introduced in 3BSD.  Neither the BSD
source nor manpage are particularly enlightening about the choice of name.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 1:22 PM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 8:49 PM Aron Insinga <aki@insinga.com> wrote:
>> For the counter-example, I wonder if anyone ever tried to type very much (verbose) DCL on VAX/VMS using a Teletype. :-)
>>
> I had occasion to use an ASR model 33 Teletype with VAX/VMS.  Hated it.  The DECwriter LA36  was acceptable, though.
>
> While DCL commands generally involved complete words,  they could be abbreviated to the smallest unique abbreviation.  Thus one mostly typed DIR instead of DIRECTORY.  Command keywords also were be required to be unique in the first 4 characters--the DCL parser ignored all but the first four. characters.  The engineers at DEC's Marlboro MA facility named one of their networked machines TWINKIE so that to log into it they could type SET HOSTESS TWINKIE.
>
> The terse Unix command verb style can be a steep learning curve for beginners.  How is one supposed to know that you say 'ls' to get a directory listing?  And unfortunately man pages aren't very useful for beginners because you have to know what the command verb is in order to call up its man page.  Unix lacks a place to ask questions such as "how do I get a directory listing?".

This makes me wonder when the `apropos` command was introduced; surely
the name was also somewhat of an obscure joke ("what is apropos of
listing a directory?" is not exactly the phrase that springs
immediately to mind when wondering how to list a directory).

But the other form of it, `man -k`, is reasonable. Plan 9 called the
similar thing, `lookman`.

        - Dan C.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Paul Winalski]

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On Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 8:49 PM Aron Insinga <aki@insinga.com> wrote:

> For the counter-example, I wonder if anyone ever tried to type very much
> (verbose) DCL on VAX/VMS using a Teletype. :-)
>
> I had occasion to use an ASR model 33 Teletype with VAX/VMS.  Hated it.
The DECwriter LA36  was acceptable, though.

While DCL commands generally involved complete words,  they could be
abbreviated to the smallest unique abbreviation.  Thus one mostly typed DIR
instead of DIRECTORY.  Command keywords also were be required to be unique
in the first 4 characters--the DCL parser ignored all but the first four.
characters.  The engineers at DEC's Marlboro MA facility named one of their
networked machines TWINKIE so that to log into it they could type SET
HOSTESS TWINKIE.

The terse Unix command verb style can be a steep learning curve for
beginners.  How is one supposed to know that you say 'ls' to get a
directory listing?  And unfortunately man pages aren't very useful for
beginners because you have to know what the command verb is in order to
call up its man page.  Unix lacks a place to ask questions such as "how do
I get a directory listing?".

-Paul W.

-Paul W.

>
> On 9/15/24 16:43, sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au wrote:
>
> ...
> For non touch typists, shorter commands & keywords are helpful.
>
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Warner Losh]

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On Sat, Sep 28, 2024, 6:49 PM Aron Insinga <aki@insinga.com> wrote:

> I am sure that shorter shell commands and switches were helpful for
> *anybody* typing on a clunky, electro-mechanical Teletype (former TM).
> They were for me, even though I had learned some typing in school on
> mechanical typewriters.
>
> For the counter-example, I wonder if anyone ever tried to type very much
> (verbose) DCL on VAX/VMS using a Teletype. :-)
>

Not a teletype... but I did on a DECwriter II. It was ok, but not as nice
as a crt

Warner

- Aron
>
>
> On 9/15/24 16:43, sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au wrote:
>
> ...
> For non touch typists, shorter commands & keywords are helpful.
>
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Aron Insinga]

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p.s. And I did use PDP-11 Unix on an upper-case-only ASR33 by typing 
backslashes before all upper-case letters to keep them from being mapped 
to lower case.

"Unix means never having to use the shift key."

(Except for those annoying all-upper-case macro names in C.)

- Aron


>> On 16 Sep 2024, at 05:21, Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:
>>
>> Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny 
>> disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 
>> for input? Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more 
>> convenient than 'catenate'...
>>
>> Rik

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Aron Insinga]

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I am sure that shorter shell commands and switches were helpful for 
*anybody* typing on a clunky, electro-mechanical Teletype (former TM).  
They were for me, even though I had learned some typing in school on 
mechanical typewriters.

For the counter-example, I wonder if anyone ever tried to type very much 
(verbose) DCL on VAX/VMS using a Teletype. :-)

- Aron


On 9/15/24 16:43, sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au wrote:
> ...
> For non touch typists, shorter commands & keywords are helpful.

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 9:36 PM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
> THAT WAS MOSTLY TOM DUFF, BUT YES.

THIS POST INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Adam Thornton]

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I feel like I would somehow be remiss if I did not point out that the
formidable Rick Troth just put XFL, which is more-or-less a port of CMS/TSO
Pipelines to POSIX, up on GitHub.

https://github.com/trothtech/xfl

I will confess to thinking CMS Pipelines are pretty cool.

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 6:36 PM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

> THAT WAS MOSTLY TOM DUFF, BUT YES.
>
>> Rob doubtless got IBM out of his system back in the
>> late 1970s, when I think he was one of the authors
>> of a shell that brought the TSO experience to Unix.
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rob Pike]

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THAT WAS MOSTLY TOM DUFF, BUT YES.

-ROB


On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 11:28 AM Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

> Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM):
>
>   Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
>   the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
>   mode.
>
> ===
>
> Rob doubtless got IBM out of his system back in the
> late 1970s, when I think he was one of the authors
> of a shell that brought the TSO experience to Unix.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 21:17 Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

> Rob Pike:
>
>   I don't remember whether late Research Unix [dd] had -if, but Plan 9
>   certainly did.
>
> ===
>
> I don't have a live 10/e system at the moment, but I have
> the 10/e source tree handy.  Classic parody-IBM syntax
> only.
>
> Aside: I'm curious: does anyone else have 8/e, 9/e, or
> 10/e running these days?
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>

I have v8 on the VAX (SIMH) running but as it doesn't have TCP/IP it fell
into my pile of "I'll try some porting later" and never got picked back up.
I also have v9 on a Sun in TME and now that the NME project has resurrected
and enhanced that, shall we say, very particular emulator I should fire it
back up and see what I can get running. I'd love to have v10 on a VAX but
my preliminary efforts to get v10 going from source on v8 were not very
successful; I suspect that it's just too big of a leap.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Norman Wilson]

Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM):

  Oh come on Rob, you should know that for anyone over the age of 50,
  the moment you see 'dd' your brain automatically switches to JCL
  mode.

===

Rob doubtless got IBM out of his system back in the
late 1970s, when I think he was one of the authors
of a shell that brought the TSO experience to Unix.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Norman Wilson]

Rob Pike:

  I don't remember whether late Research Unix [dd] had -if, but Plan 9
  certainly did.

===

I don't have a live 10/e system at the moment, but I have
the 10/e source tree handy.  Classic parody-IBM syntax
only.

Aside: I'm curious: does anyone else have 8/e, 9/e, or
10/e running these days?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 9/16/24 4:55 PM, Dan Cross wrote:

>> I correctly guessed that only one of thing or otherthing would be printed,
>> but I was not able to guess if the | or the < would take precedence.
>>
>> Is there a simple reason why the < has priority over | for the stdin ?
> 
> I suppose this depends entirely on the shell; perhaps that is the
> point.

POSIX actually speaks on this:

"The standard input, standard output, or both of a command shall be
considered to be assigned by the pipeline before any redirection specified
by redirection operators that are part of the command"

https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_19_09_02

In the general case, this is how things like

program 2>&1 | collect_stdout_and_stderr

can work (file descriptor 1 is associated with the pipe before fd 2 is
redirected to it).

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 7:31 AM Edouard Klein <edouardklein@gmail.com> wrote:
> George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> writes:
> > cat is capable of endless discussion.
> >
> > cat thing | cat otherthing doesn't do what (some) people think.
> > cat thing | cat otherthing /dev/stdin does, but there's an ordering
> > point to be made.
> > cat thing | cat < otherthing /dev/stdin makes the ordering point. and
> > the number of lines seen.
>
> I'm not sure of the point you are making with your last example, which
> gave me pause. I had to run it to see what it does.
>
> I correctly guessed that only one of thing or otherthing would be printed,
> but I was not able to guess if the | or the < would take precedence.
>
> Is there a simple reason why the < has priority over | for the stdin ?

I suppose this depends entirely on the shell; perhaps that is the
point. Arguably, being the target of a pipe _and_ having a redirect on
stdin should be some kind of an error, but regardless, something that
is true is that is that the second `cat` command will only see
whatever is on `stdin` as it reads from `/dev/stdin`, but what is _on_
stdin can be confusing.

        - Dan C.


> If the < precedence was your point, why did you specify /dev/stdin ?
> cat thing | cat < otherthing
> makes the point.
>
> Is there a finer point I am missing ?
>
> Sorry for being dense. I'm happy, after more that 20 years of Unixing,
> to see something new even with such supposedly basic commands. Thank you
> for your brain twister.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Clem Cole]

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Well, Doug, I'm not sure what it says about me now or them, but I remember
that my 18-year-old self thought that was a funny name in those days. Over
50 years later, I find that it still makes me smile.
Clem
ᐧ

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 8:07 AM Douglas McIlroy <
douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> The florid syntax of IBM's DD was rivaled by that of GE's file utility. I
> always wondered whether it was named FUTIL unwarily or with tongue in cheek.
>
> Doug
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Douglas McIlroy]

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The florid syntax of IBM's DD was rivaled by that of GE's file utility. I
always wondered whether it was named FUTIL unwarily or with tongue in cheek.

Doug

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Edouard Klein]

George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> writes:

> cat is capable of endless discussion.
>
> cat thing | cat otherthing doesn't do what (some) people think.
> cat thing | cat otherthing /dev/stdin does, but there's an ordering
> point to be made.
> cat thing | cat < otherthing /dev/stdin makes the ordering point. and
> the number of lines seen.
>


I'm not sure of the point you are making with your last example, which
gave me pause. I had to run it to see what it does.

I correctly guessed that only one of thing or otherthing would be printed,
but I was not able to guess if the | or the < would take precedence.

Is there a simple reason why the < has priority over | for the stdin ?

If the < precedence was your point, why did you specify /dev/stdin ?
cat thing | cat < otherthing
makes the point.

Is there a finer point I am missing ?

Sorry for being dense. I'm happy, after more that 20 years of Unixing,
to see something new even with such supposedly basic commands. Thank you
for your brain twister.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Andy Kosela]

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On Monday, September 16, 2024, George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:

> cat is capable of endless discussion.
>
> cat thing | cat otherthing doesn't do what (some) people think.
> cat thing | cat otherthing /dev/stdin does, but there's an ordering
> point to be made.
> cat thing | cat < otherthing /dev/stdin makes the ordering point. and
> the number of lines seen.
>
> the role of the shell in marshalling the IO and determining what is
> opened, when, truncated is another pitfall that seems to escape
> people. "I thought the commands ran left to right" when your first
> command < something and your final command > something
>
> like others, my use of cat is reflexive. I know perfectly well I could
> solve the whole problem in awk or sed, I still construct sequences to
> use sed to edit the lines, and awk to extract the fields in LSWP
> denoted counts. we're speaking english and say "comme ci comme ca" and
> nobody blinks, it's the same in shell. codeswitching!
>

I have always admired one letter commands in ed(1) and during the years
constructed my own personal perfect Unix dictionary with most often used
commands as one letter abbreviations. For cat(1) I have always used 'c'
(cee) which also denotes one of its main functions.

Grep(1) is 'g', vi(1) is 'v', etc.

It makes typing a little faster, at least for me.

--Andy

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Wesley Parish]

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Every computer geek knows his/her cat is the Computer Purry Furr-all ... 
don't say you weren't warned! :)

Wesley Parish

On 16/09/24 07:36, Ron Natalie wrote:
> Before I got hooked on UNIX in 1977, I used a Univac Exec8 system.
> You “cataloged” (created) a file with the @CAT command.
> Other, file operations were done by the File Utility Routine/Program 
> Utility Routine:  FURPUR
> (sort of like pip on steroids).
>
> I decided that if I ever got a CAT, it would be named FURPUR.   That 
> happened when I was working for Rutgers.   Not having any UNIVACs 
> around, the name escaped notice until the EE department hired a guy 
> from the University of Maryland who says “You have a cat named FURPUR?”
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[George Michaelson]

cat is capable of endless discussion.

cat thing | cat otherthing doesn't do what (some) people think.
cat thing | cat otherthing /dev/stdin does, but there's an ordering
point to be made.
cat thing | cat < otherthing /dev/stdin makes the ordering point. and
the number of lines seen.

the role of the shell in marshalling the IO and determining what is
opened, when, truncated is another pitfall that seems to escape
people. "I thought the commands ran left to right" when your first
command < something and your final command > something

like others, my use of cat is reflexive. I know perfectly well I could
solve the whole problem in awk or sed, I still construct sequences to
use sed to edit the lines, and awk to extract the fields in LSWP
denoted counts. we're speaking english and say "comme ci comme ca" and
nobody blinks, it's the same in shell. codeswitching!

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[arnold]

Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> But brevity is the defensible argument for "catenate", while
> familiarity boosts "concatenate".

I suspect that only "highly educated east-coasters" are
familiar with "catenate."  My education was pretty good,
but catenate, for all it's advantages of brevity and similar
age to "concatenate" is simply never used in modern-day
American English.

I'd never heard it until, like just about all the rest of
us, I came across it in the Unix manual.

My $.02,

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Marc Donner]

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Sorry, my 'eh?' was an ironic reference to the cryptic error messages from
ed.
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 5:41 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> [ Undoing top-posting ]
>
> On Sun, 15 Sep 2024, Marc Donner wrote:
>
> > > BSD didn’t use those rules (backup & restore).
> >
> > dump/restor (no "e"), as I recall?
> >
> > eh?
>
> What needs to be clarified?
>
> -- Dave

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dave Horsfall]

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[ Undoing top-posting ]

On Sun, 15 Sep 2024, Marc Donner wrote:

> > BSD didn’t use those rules (backup & restore).
> 
> dump/restor (no "e"), as I recall?
> 
> eh?

What needs to be clarified?

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Marc Donner]

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eh?

On Sun, Sep 15, 2024, 16:48 Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au wrote:
>
> > BSD didn’t use those rules (backup & restore).
>
> dump/restor (no "e"), as I recall?
>
> -- Dave

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dave Horsfall]

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On Mon, 16 Sep 2024, sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au wrote:

> BSD didn’t use those rules (backup & restore).

dump/restor (no "e"), as I recall?

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[sjenkin]

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Early on, here in Faraway Land, I was told Unix command naming rules were these:
however can’t recall seeing it written:

	2-7 chars - ie. short + reserved single chars for personal use
	lower case
	non-dictionary words - allowing 3rd party software a clear run

Of course, “sort” fails those rules :)

BSD didn’t use those rules (backup & restore).

For non touch typists, shorter commands & keywords are helpful.

> On 16 Sep 2024, at 05:21, Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:
> 
> Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 for input? Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more convenient than 'catenate'...
> 
> Rik
> 

--
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin


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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Dan Halbert]

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On 9/15/24 15:25, John Dow via TUHS wrote:
> 
>> On 15 Sep 2024, at 20:21, Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny 
>> disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 
>> for input? Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more 
>> convenient than 'catenate'...
>>
>
> Hangover from assembly mnemonics, perhaps.
>
Multics had long names and short names for many commands. `ls` was the 
short name for `list`, for instance. See "additional names" in 
https://multicians.org/mga.html.

Dan H
(original author of the `more` command`, considered to be a long name by 
some and short by others! https://danhalbert.org/more.html)

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Ron Natalie]

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Before I got hooked on UNIX in 1977, I used a Univac Exec8 system.
You “cataloged” (created) a file with the @CAT command.
Other, file operations were done by the File Utility Routine/Program 
Utility Routine:  FURPUR
(sort of like pip on steroids).

I decided that if I ever got a CAT, it would be named FURPUR.   That 
happened when I was working for Rutgers.   Not having any UNIVACs 
around, the name escaped notice until the EE department hired a guy from 
the University of Maryland who says “You have a cat named FURPUR?”

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[John Dow via TUHS]

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> On 15 Sep 2024, at 20:21, Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:
> 
> Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 for input? Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more convenient than 'catenate'...

Hangover from assembly mnemonics, perhaps.

J


— 
John Dow <jmd@nelefa.org>
Written by a human.


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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Rik Farrow]

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Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny disk
and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 for input?
Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more convenient than
'catenate'...

Rik


On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 7:38 AM Douglas McIlroy <
douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> > Who created the "cat" command and did they have the
> > word "catenate" or "concatenate" in their heads?
>
> Ken Thompson wrote "cat" for the PDP-7, with "concatenate" in
> mind. The cat(1) page in the v1 manual is titled, "concatenate (or
> print) files". Only later did someone in Research--I don't know
> who--remark on the existence of the shorter synonym. It was
> deliberately adopted in v7, perhaps because it better mirrored
> the command name.
>
> But brevity is the defensible argument for "catenate", while
> familiarity boosts "concatenate". It stll takes some conscious
> effort for me to use the former, However, I sense sinister
> vibes in "concatenate", driven by the phrase "concatenation
> of events", which often is used to explain misfortune.
>
> Doug
>

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Douglas McIlroy]

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> Who created the "cat" command and did they have the
> word "catenate" or "concatenate" in their heads?

Ken Thompson wrote "cat" for the PDP-7, with "concatenate" in
mind. The cat(1) page in the v1 manual is titled, "concatenate (or
print) files". Only later did someone in Research--I don't know
who--remark on the existence of the shorter synonym. It was
deliberately adopted in v7, perhaps because it better mirrored
the command name.

But brevity is the defensible argument for "catenate", while
familiarity boosts "concatenate". It stll takes some conscious
effort for me to use the former, However, I sense sinister
vibes in "concatenate", driven by the phrase "concatenation
of events", which often is used to explain misfortune.

Doug

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Will Senn]

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Nice. KISS is underrated :).

On 9/13/24 11:12, Adam Thornton wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2024 at 7:06 AM Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     Big fan of KISS here
>
>
> Yeah, _Destroyer_ is a great album.
>
> Adam

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Adam Thornton]

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On Fri, Sep 13, 2024 at 7:06 AM Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Big fan of KISS here
>

Yeah, _Destroyer_ is a great album.

Adam

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Åke Nordin]

On 2024-09-13 06:03, Eric E. Bowles via TUHS wrote:

>> I always assumed this was some old crusty project management term that predated modern technology but the Wikipedia sphere says it was coined in the late 80s by Ivar Jacobson of Ericsson in the context of requirements analysis.  Apparently the original Swedish term is "användningsfall".  I've got a coworker that likes to share "fun facts" every Friday...I might have to supplement that bit of our call tomorrow :)
>> - Matt G.
> For reference, here's the relevant (and lengthy) Wikipedia entry:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_case

Ericsson corrupting the use of English words is not news to me,
as I've had some exposure to various Ericsson operations
at that time (and onwards).

It can be noted that they were deep into the process of replacing
Swedish with English everywhere, in documentation and (internal
as well as external) communication. To this end, and to alleviate
the pains of most senior execs (many of who were of a generation
where German, not English, was the first foreign language studied
in primary schools), Ericsson invented some rather Pidginesque
internal variety of English that actually was branded "Ericsson
English." It wouldn't surprise me if "Användningsfall" (which
is a term in Ericsson "PROPS" process management methodology)
was translated to "use case" there already before Jacobson
used it in his documentation.

It's no surprise that "Ericsson English" basically was Swedish
with word-for-word replacements. This abomination was surprisingly
usable, probably because they're both Germanic languages
who were mutually intelligible until maybe 1000 years ago.

MfG,

-- 
Åke Nordin <ake.nordin@netia.se>, resident Net/Lunix/telecom geek.
Netia Data AB, Stockholm SWEDEN *46#7O466OI99#

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Will Senn]

On 9/12/24, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> There it festered, right in the middle of Branden's otherwise high 
> literary
> style: "use cases". I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its
> way into computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a
> "use"? Or, what's the use of "use case"?
>
> And while I'm despairing, "concatenate" rolls on, undeterred by Research's
> campaign for concision. We determinedly excised the word from the seventh
> edition. The man page header for cat(1) read "catenate and print". Posix
> added content on both ends, making "concatenate and print files". Gnu
> puffed it up further to "concatenate files and print on the standard
> output".
>
>  It's not as if the seventh edition was storming the gates of English.
> According to the OED, "catenate" and "concatenate" are synonyms of long
> standing that entered the language almost simultaneously. Why pick the
> flabby one over its brisk--and more mnemonic--rival?
>
> Doug
>
Just gotta say, I completely agree with this sentiment as regards 
catenate. Also, I've never been sold
on use-case, either. If I remember, it was Jacobson who popularized the 
term. Maybe use-case was contrived
to provide some further distinction from the uses connection... as in 
the use-case:

Validate Password uses Enter Password...

Personally, I think a use is fine and it doesn't matter much that in a 
use, an actor uses a function...but hey,
technical fields are well known and loved for using language in 
perfectly unreasonable ways. Technical language is used, ostensibly, to 
disambiguate, but more often than not it obscures and alienates. In my 
classes, I spend a lot of effort breaking things down into simple terms 
while pointing out the use of jargon and the importance of nailing it 
for the chosen profession - likening it to a cult of technicality. Big 
fan of KISS here :). Terms should mean what they say so professionals 
can say what they mean... clearly and with as little ambiguity as is 
reasonable, that is, language affords a great deal of redundancy and we 
should not be afraid to leverage this tool as well - leave the hunt for 
perfect disambiguation to the mathematicians.

- will

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2024-09-12T20:26:03-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> >> I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its way into
> >> computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a
> >> "use"?

For TUHS readers curious about the start of this thread, it's here:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2024-09/msg00040.html

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Eric E. Bowles via TUHS]

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> I always assumed this was some old crusty project management term that predated modern technology but the Wikipedia sphere says it was coined in the late 80s by Ivar Jacobson of Ericsson in the context of requirements analysis.  Apparently the original Swedish term is "användningsfall".  I've got a coworker that likes to share "fun facts" every Friday...I might have to supplement that bit of our call tomorrow :)
> 
> - Matt G.


For reference, here's the relevant (and lengthy) Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_case

--eric

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[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Thursday, September 12th, 2024 at 6:01 PM, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson@makerlisp.com> wrote:

> "use case" is a case of the use of both of the words "use" and "case",
> compounding (confounding ?) them, they specify the use of "case" to
> identify (and emphasize) a specific "use" (or set of uses), as distinct
> from other cases in which so much attention has not been paid to which
> uses they serve. I'm having fun with words here but, like test cases can
> be used to isolate (or mix) certain behaviors, use cases might be
> crafted as examples, for the purpose of distilling from them, clearer
> requirements. I think the requirements people were trying to borrow the
> style of language from the test people. But many times it's probably
> just jargon-y technical sounding buzz-wordery meant to make things seem
> more important than they are.
> 
> On 09/12/2024 05:26 PM, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> 
> > > > I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its way into
> > > > computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a "use"?
> > > 
> > > Clarity as to whether one is employing a noun or a verb. Both "use" and
> > > "case" can be either (he said, casing the joint for tomorrow's heist),
> > > but juxtaposing them thus unambiguously makes a noun phrase.
> > 
> > Usually context makes the nominal use of "use" clear : "many uses",
> > "the use",
> > "some uses". I'm not persuaded that "use case" disambiguates any more
> > reliably.
> > 
> > How do supermarkets display their wares?
> > For some use cases they use cases.
> > 
> > Metacomment. While the "use" in "nominal use" above must be a noun,
> > "nominal" isn't compelled to have the intended meaning of "being a
> > noun". It's a game of whac-a-mot. Kill one ambiguity and spawn another.
> > 
> > Doug

I always assumed this was some old crusty project management term that predated modern technology but the Wikipedia sphere says it was coined in the late 80s by Ivar Jacobson of Ericsson in the context of requirements analysis.  Apparently the original Swedish term is "användningsfall".  I've got a coworker that likes to share "fun facts" every Friday...I might have to supplement that bit of our call tomorrow :)

- Matt G.

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Luther Johnson]

"use case" is a case of the use of both of the words "use" and "case",
compounding (confounding ?) them, they specify the use of "case" to
identify (and emphasize) a specific "use" (or set of uses), as distinct
from other cases in which so much attention has not been paid to which
uses they serve. I'm having fun with words here but, like test cases can
be used to isolate (or mix) certain behaviors, use cases might be
crafted as examples, for the purpose of distilling from them, clearer
requirements. I think the requirements people were trying to borrow the
style of language from the test people. But many times it's probably
just jargon-y technical sounding buzz-wordery meant to make things seem
more important than they are.

On 09/12/2024 05:26 PM, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> >> I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its way into
> >> computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a "use"?
> >
> > Clarity as to whether one is employing a noun or a verb.  Both "use" and
> > "case" can be either (he said, casing the joint for tomorrow's heist),
> > but juxtaposing them thus unambiguously makes a noun phrase.
>
> Usually context makes the nominal use of "use" clear : "many uses",
> "the use",
> "some uses". I'm  not persuaded that "use case" disambiguates any more
> reliably.
>
> How do supermarkets display their wares?
> For some use cases they use cases.
>
> Metacomment. While the "use" in "nominal use" above must be a noun,
> "nominal" isn't compelled to have the intended meaning of "being a
> noun". It's a game of whac-a-mot. Kill one ambiguity and spawn another.
>
> Doug

[TUHS] Re: On computerese

[Douglas McIlroy]

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>> I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its way into
>> computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a "use"?
>
> Clarity as to whether one is employing a noun or a verb.  Both "use" and
> "case" can be either (he said, casing the joint for tomorrow's heist),
> but juxtaposing them thus unambiguously makes a noun phrase.

Usually context makes the nominal use of "use" clear : "many uses", "the
use",
"some uses". I'm  not persuaded that "use case" disambiguates any more
reliably.

How do supermarkets display their wares?
For some use cases they use cases.

Metacomment. While the "use" in "nominal use" above must be a noun,
"nominal" isn't compelled to have the intended meaning of "being a noun".
It's a game of whac-a-mot. Kill one ambiguity and spawn another.

Doug

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