From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: brantleycoile@me.com (Brantley Coile) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2017 01:00:36 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Unix stories, Stephen Bourne and IF-FI in C code In-Reply-To: <934ec8dea21ce728b7c4e70a6ee2deb86af39d27@webmail.yaccman.com> References: <934ec8dea21ce728b7c4e70a6ee2deb86af39d27@webmail.yaccman.com> Message-ID: <2FF70709-B205-4A26-BFD2-04EA0E18E662@me.com> I asked Ken and Steve about this yesterday. Ken remembers the request to rename od(1) but not who asked. Steve remembers vaguely asking but suspects he just used do - od and found out the hard way he needed to change it to done. Neither remembers the episode very well so it must not have been a big deal to them at the time. Brantley > On Jan 8, 2017, at 10:31 PM, Steve Johnson wrote: > > I wasn't directly involved in this, but I do remember Dennis telling me essentially the same story. I don't recall him mentioning Ken's name, just that "we couldn't use od because that was already taken". > > Steve B and I had adjacent offices, so I overheard a lot of the discussions about the Bourne shell. The quoting mechanisms, in particular, got a lot of attention, I think to good end. There was a lot more thought there than is evident from the surface... > > Steve (not Bourne) > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > "Norman Wilson" > > To: > > Cc: > > Sent: > Sun, 08 Jan 2017 21:30:03 -0500 > Subject: > Re: [TUHS] Unix stories, Stephen Bourne and IF-FI in C code > > > Doug McIlroy: > > There was some pushback which resulted in the strange compromise > of if-fi, case-esac, do-done. Alas, the details have slipped from > memory. Help, scj? > > ==== > > do-od would have required renaming the long-tenured od(1). > > I remember a tale--possibly chat in the UNIX Room at one point in > the latter 1980s--that Steve tried and tried and tried to convince > Ken to rename od, in the name of symmetry and elegance. Ken simply > said no, as many times as it took. I don't remember who I heard this > from; anyone still in touch with Ken who can ask him? > > Norman Wilson > Toronto ON -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: