Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Norman Wilson]

Ron Natalie:

  I use the numbers but I think it stems from the days when kill didn't take
  the names.    It's easier for me to remember -1 and -9 than to remember what
  the mnemonics are.

====

Me too.  And not just the kill command; the (real) shell's
trap command too.

It's all just muscle memory, not a desire to save keystrokes.

On the rare occasions when I need to send a post-modern signal
like SIGSTOP or SIGCONT, I use the name.

As an aside, why do modern kill and sh accept only the
abbreviated form of the signal name, not the full name;
e.g. kill -STOP is OK, kill -SIGSTOP an error?  When we
taught kill about that sometime in (I think) the 9th Edition
era at Research, we allowed either form.  I think it was
Doug who insisted on it, and he was right.

All this applies to shell commands, not to programs.
It is just plain wrong to code
	kill(9, pid)
in C.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Chet Ramey]

On 9/5/18 11:04 AM, Norman Wilson wrote:

> As an aside, why do modern kill and sh accept only the
> abbreviated form of the signal name, not the full name;
> e.g. kill -STOP is OK, kill -SIGSTOP an error?  

It's the standard:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/kill.html#tag_20_64

"Historical versions of kill have not written the SIG prefix for the -l
option and have not recognized the SIG prefix on signal_names."

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_28

"Implementations may also accept the names with the SIG prefix; no known
historical shell does so."

-- 
``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/

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Kurt H Maier]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2018 at 11:44:35AM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Norman Wilson
> 
>     > It is just plain wrong to code
>     >  kill(9, pid)
> 
> _All_ uses of magic numbers in numeric form are wrong!
> 
> 	Noel

https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/boost/utility/binary.hpp


khm

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[John P. Linderman]

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On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 11:44 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Norman Wilson
>
>     > It is just plain wrong to code
>     >  kill(9, pid)
>
> _All_ uses of magic numbers in numeric form are wrong!
>
>         Noel
>

I completely agree, although you can do worse. A junior programmer I worked
with at MIT wrote (in IBM assembler)

twelv dc 10

(I probably have the syntax wrong, but he was declaring the value of
symbolic name 'twelv' to be 10). I have no idea why he did this. He didn't
last long.

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Norman Wilson

    > It is just plain wrong to code
    >  kill(9, pid)

_All_ uses of magic numbers in numeric form are wrong!

	Noel

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[William Pechter]

Early plug and play.

Would have worked better if they trained the PC techs in how the stuff worked.

Bill
Old ex-tech turned sysadmin


-----Original Message-----
From: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
To: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc: William Pechter <pechter@gmail.com>, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Sent: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 11:22
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 9:03 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 10:31 AM William Pechter <pechter@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Screw IBM for the in cable drive select lines on diskette
>>
> You of course realized that was because of field service issues of
> course.   Setting all floppies (and later ST-506 disks) on the PC and using
> a twist in the cable meant they did not have to ask FS folks to set the
> jumpers properly.
>

 Ah yes, the original zeroconfig :)

Warner

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Warner Losh]

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On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 9:03 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 10:31 AM William Pechter <pechter@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Screw IBM for the in cable drive select lines on diskette
>>
> You of course realized that was because of field service issues of
> course.   Setting all floppies (and later ST-506 disks) on the PC and using
> a twist in the cable meant they did not have to ask FS folks to set the
> jumpers properly.
>

 Ah yes, the original zeroconfig :)

Warner

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Clem Cole]

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On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 10:31 AM William Pechter <pechter@gmail.com> wrote:

> At least in the old days drives had Write Protect switches.
>
Not the issue - both disks were RW.  I was running as root and ran a
program that lacked a check it shoud have had it (because I was lazy and
never put it in there).



> Screw IBM for the in cable drive select lines on diskette
>
You of course realized that was because of field service issues of course.
 Setting all floppies (and later ST-506 disks) on the PC and using a twist
in the cable meant they did not have to ask FS folks to set the jumpers
properly.




> and leaving off Write Protect on hard disks.  Some disks had write protect
> jumpers on the boards...
>
Hmmm.. I thought all disks at least had a strap.   WD, CDC, Seagate,
Shuggart, Toshiba all supported the strap.  The IBM disks I remember did
not also, but I'll take your word for it, it would have been like them to
have removed it to save the connector cost.




> They should have been The STANDARD.
>
Hmmm.. I'm not at home, but I think I have both the ST-412/506 and ESDI
specs in a filing cab somewhere.  I thought the standard did defined it.
(Intel blocks 'bitsavers.org' for some reason so I can not look online but
I think  http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/seagate/ST412_OEMmanual_Apr82.pdf is
likely to have it in there).

Clem

>

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[William Pechter]

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At least in the old days drives had Write Protect switches.
Screw IBM for the in cable drive select lines on diskette and leaving off Write Protect on hard disks.  Some disks had write protect jumpers on the boards... They should have been The STANDARD.

Bill

⁣Sent from BlueMail ​

On Aug 30, 2018, 09:25, at 09:25, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 7:07 AM <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>
>> I use the numbers but I think it stems from the days when kill didn't
>take
>> the names.    It's easier for me to remember -1 and -9 than to
>remember
>> what
>> the mnemonics are.
>>
>Same here - there first time I saw the mnemonics were in the built-in
>kill
>command in csh.    Which was usefule for "kill -cont"
>
>but to this day, since like Ron I grew on fifth/sixth/seventh edition
>which
>used numbers, the ones that I remember and care about are screwed into
>my
>fingers.
>
>I never have an issue with -1 vs -9 with kill, but I do not have great
>story about how as a young engineer I wiped out the life's work of
>visiting
>professor because Tektronix had the 0 and 1 keys next to each other on
>one
>of the terminals they made.  It was the console of our 11/60 and we had
>two
>RK05's and I fat fingured /dev/r...0 instead of 1.  Bad stuff.
>
>Clem

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Clem Cole]

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On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 7:07 AM <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:

> I use the numbers but I think it stems from the days when kill didn't take
> the names.    It's easier for me to remember -1 and -9 than to remember
> what
> the mnemonics are.
>
Same here - there first time I saw the mnemonics were in the built-in kill
command in csh.    Which was usefule for "kill -cont"

but to this day, since like Ron I grew on fifth/sixth/seventh edition which
used numbers, the ones that I remember and care about are screwed into my
fingers.

I never have an issue with -1 vs -9 with kill, but I do not have great
story about how as a young engineer I wiped out the life's work of visiting
professor because Tektronix had the 0 and 1 keys next to each other on one
of the terminals they made.  It was the console of our 11/60 and we had two
RK05's and I fat fingured /dev/r...0 instead of 1.  Bad stuff.

Clem

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[John P. Linderman]

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I remember doing a fresh install of unix on a VAX with another sysadmin. We
had spent a couple hours getting everything ready to go, and he had created
a bunch of temporary directories under /tmp to hold intermediate work. All
started with ".", so, in /tmp, he entered "rm -r .*". Unfortunately, that
matched .. as well. We knew something had gone very wrong when we got a
"/bin/rm: text busy" message as rm tried to remove itself.

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 7:06 AM, <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:

> I use the numbers but I think it stems from the days when kill didn't take
> the names.    It's easier for me to remember -1 and -9 than to remember
> what
> the mnemonics are.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org> On Behalf Of Dave Horsfall
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 6:04 PM
> > To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
> > Subject: Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands
> >
> > On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Warren Toomey wrote:
> >
> > > This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping
> > > "kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.
> >
> > Hands up all those who have *not* done that...
> >
> > -- Dave
>
>

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[ron]

I use the numbers but I think it stems from the days when kill didn't take
the names.    It's easier for me to remember -1 and -9 than to remember what
the mnemonics are.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org> On Behalf Of Dave Horsfall
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 6:04 PM
> To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands
> 
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> > This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping
> > "kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.
> 
> Hands up all those who have *not* done that...
> 
> -- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Dave Horsfall]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:

> Signal names?  I've always used numbers / quit.  I don't think I've ever 
> seen anybody do otherwise.

I've never used signal names (other than SIGTERM, when it got changed from 
14 to 15 for no good reason that I could see; at least it's now the 
default signal).

-- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[William Pechter]

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The only time I hid something like that was back in my Field Service days.

I smoked a third party data comm board which cost $$$$ while trying to
replace it.
DEC had me do something for one of my customers on a third party hardware
install.   I had no docs, training or experience with the board.
Unfortunately, the vendor didn't key a power cable and I flipped the damned
two pin wire blowing the chip top right off the board.

Wasn't sure it was my fault.  I stayed with the call until they got another
board and they got the box up and running and I finally figured I was the
cause
of the issue.  Didn't volunteer the info since I wasn't sure.   Probably
should've taken the hit.  When I did the bad thing I took the hit.

One of these was shorting +15v (IIRC) to Init L on the Unibus on an
11/780.  Blew the bits off all the boards back to the Unibus termination on
the DW780
and out to the M9302 Unibus terminator.

Spent the next two days rebuilding the box.
I still had a great relationship with the customer for the next 4 years at
the site.

People understand mistakes and will forgive.  Lying to a customer to keep
up a corporate image will never be forgotten if you get caught.

I remember stealing HDA's off of brand new RA81's at DEC's Princeton HQ to
get them out to customer sites before failures in the field from the glue
liquification issue.
Customers will stand by a company that puts them first and delivers serious
effort.
Nowadays the outsourced techs are pretty much parts carriers and swappers
with no ability to push company deliveries up and often they act as a
delaying action until the
company can deliver the correct services.

Bill


--
  d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN.  Don't you wish you could still buy it now!
 pechter-at-gmail.com


On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 7:05 PM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
wrote:

> On 08/29/2018 04:21 PM, William Pechter wrote:
> > Did that one at Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems around '95 as an
> > IBM Global Services guy.  Ran to the computer room to restart services
> > and Oracle on AIX.
>
> @^*% happens.
>
> Anybody that tells you it doesn't happen to them is lying.
>
> > Apologized to the customer.  IBM demanded a formal Root Cause Analysis
> > for the fat finger with recommendations for avoiding the problem in
> > the future.  I proposed redesigned ascii keyboards where Q and 1 weren't
> > adjacent.
>
> I remember things like that.
>
> I always liked to admit things like that to the customer.  I felt that
> it fostered trust.  More than once I went to a customer that trusted me
> and told them that something was not me and they took me at my word,
> primarily because of that established trust.
>
> > Management suits not amused.  Customer took it as simple accident and
> > dealt with the 5-10 minute outage.
>
> Nice.
>
>
>
> --
> Grant. . . .
> unix || die
>
>

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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 05:04:48PM -0600, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
> On 08/29/2018 04:21 PM, William Pechter wrote:
> >Apologized to the customer.  IBM demanded a formal Root Cause Analysis for
> >the fat finger with recommendations for avoiding the problem in the
> >future.  I proposed redesigned ascii keyboards where Q and 1 weren't
> >adjacent.
> 
> I remember things like that.
> 
> I always liked to admit things like that to the customer.  I felt that it
> fostered trust.  More than once I went to a customer that trusted me and
> told them that something was not me and they took me at my word, primarily
> because of that established trust.

Yep, I'm the same way and I think most good to stellar engineers are the
same way.  How can you fix your stuff if you are in denial about it being
broken.

And I agree with you Grant, on the trust building.  Customers love it 
when you are honest.

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Grant Taylor via TUHS]

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On 08/29/2018 04:21 PM, William Pechter wrote:
> Did that one at Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems around '95 as an 
> IBM Global Services guy.  Ran to the computer room to restart services 
> and Oracle on AIX.

@^*% happens.

Anybody that tells you it doesn't happen to them is lying.

> Apologized to the customer.  IBM demanded a formal Root Cause Analysis 
> for the fat finger with recommendations for avoiding the problem in 
> the future.  I proposed redesigned ascii keyboards where Q and 1 weren't 
> adjacent.

I remember things like that.

I always liked to admit things like that to the customer.  I felt that 
it fostered trust.  More than once I went to a customer that trusted me 
and told them that something was not me and they took me at my word, 
primarily because of that established trust.

> Management suits not amused.  Customer took it as simple accident and 
> dealt with the 5-10 minute outage.

Nice.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Grant Taylor via TUHS]

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On 08/29/2018 04:31 PM, Dan Mick wrote:
> I always type signal names.  Life's too short to worry about saving 
> three characters.

Signal names?  I've always used numbers / quit.  I don't think I've ever 
seen anybody do otherwise.

/me goes to read the man page.

Thank you for the pro tip Dan.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Dan Mick]

On 08/29/2018 03:03 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
>> This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping
>> "kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.
> 
> Hands up all those who have *not* done that...
> 
> -- Dave

<raises hand>

I always type signal names.  Life's too short to worry about saving
three characters.

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[William Pechter]

Did that one at Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems around '95 as an IBM Global Services guy.  Ran to the computer room to restart services and Oracle on AIX.

Apologized to the customer.  IBM demanded a formal Root Cause Analysis for the fat finger with recommendations for avoiding the problem in the future.
I proposed redesigned ascii keyboards where Q and 1 weren't adjacent.

Management suits not amused.  Customer took it as simple accident and dealt with the 5-10 minute outage.

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 18:09
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

On 08/29/2018 04:03 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> Hands up all those who have *not* done that...

My faux pas is usually meaning to type "telinit q" but reaching a bit 
too far and accidnetally typing "telinit 1".

*facepalm*

/me starts the (not so) slow walk of shame to the DC.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Grant Taylor via TUHS]

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On 08/29/2018 04:03 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> Hands up all those who have *not* done that...

My faux pas is usually meaning to type "telinit q" but reaching a bit 
too far and accidnetally typing "telinit 1".

*facepalm*

/me starts the (not so) slow walk of shame to the DC.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


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Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Dave Horsfall]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Warren Toomey wrote:

> This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping 
> "kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.

Hands up all those who have *not* done that...

-- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Warren Toomey wrote:

> This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping
> "kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.

Last week I typed "crontab -" (missed the "e" for -e)  and then without 
realizing what happened Ctrl-C didn't work, typed Ctrl-D.  Argh. Lost 
around 20 crontabs which were in a directory I didn't backup. Luckily I 
had a syslog file with my recent jobs to recreate it, but lost all my 
comments and commented-out entries (for over ten years).

Re: [TUHS] Cryptic Unix Commands

[Warren Toomey]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 11:23:10PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> 	stty dec < /dev/ttyS0
> 
> Really, why did those young whippersnappers had to add an option, when
> redirection worked perfectly well and required one less character to
> type?  :-)

This reminded me of other semi-cryptic commands. I remember mistyping
"kill -1 1" as "kill -9 1" with the inevitable consequences.

	Warren