From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN,FREEMAIL_FROM, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [IPv6:2600:3c01:e000:146::1]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCDF323623 for ; Fri, 1 Mar 2024 20:45:09 +0100 (CET) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 363DC43241; Sat, 2 Mar 2024 05:45:05 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-pf1-x42f.google.com (mail-pf1-x42f.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::42f]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DA1C643240 for ; Sat, 2 Mar 2024 05:44:58 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-pf1-x42f.google.com with SMTP id d2e1a72fcca58-6e5d7f1f15bso503746b3a.2 for ; Fri, 01 Mar 2024 11:44:58 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20230601; t=1709322298; x=1709927098; darn=tuhs.org; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:references:in-reply-to :mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=cGLnhDF9lP/GcHCWq77Tl+/s9OQocy4bCL7vhyt2peY=; b=Kx2visoU659aySfOMQ8DFAuKk65RGHGJAEDm+98uffBLAu2/zbq42XeNVmdds0Wv6J Jloa7ODgqkMV2zT7Yr77HA/BZY2w1OFp4YfrOJV/MLfAwaGyP4RF2OaSGCWlwYsnuA9r ZZa+92sxXFHwB/GTSmKFjAUk/LQEkf5fUpbbZf6rruVGvG3tVPY+wTSa4NE9B3vr0kbQ Ja7DUy/QzbyXXYAlB9qXoxLUTHGX/5rulQz+gB3U3vplfTeCG41EdBfHeNWll9yyYR7b z2gBo2c9zFcZygiIbNy2FWCH1oM1o8+emEgTGlvqR4FEqj2v4Q5WRkU6sjGxru6Q4it9 APOw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1709322298; x=1709927098; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:references:in-reply-to :mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id :reply-to; bh=cGLnhDF9lP/GcHCWq77Tl+/s9OQocy4bCL7vhyt2peY=; b=wUv+VMIEfOfCGozN3Gp68aVUVZgveEijunxpTCucPlqCnhCv4rnAE402fA2+kMqIE5 5iRE4BnKVKO+fCiGDgP7lEI2/lMUZkhK1XHjqMqpdkqsglS/QVT2cOAP3Hci4Rjh2CuI 0i3TOKPC0rtGyNa2se8cULGrqnRygwguuz0LHo+1DD/cakHmF99ha1i3LL8THrhCaFD2 eyIx/0g3jHkDna59eHZxl0SUKnG1qlty1O8/myAiqLoLu+kvcnzdSqWFiTicnZduh8DX +hRUfd42hO3wNPBXhMe+gYa3wtAwbovhsuAXq6cKv8GsyHMvI/oU2Dj/ysDhSpDQFQQy eR1w== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0Yyw0fNbvVVJqVmrHZMWB9X+S1rI76B/iT8mLZ7cOZsmc08T7b28 qdBh01hQ7XZtoNg333ShLSb+Fcu+/Epu6ZsB9bGyxfRxNWc1tra2i5w77qteJfgLkvw5DFOw/8L TNzYjh/9meEc37ybiKNsm+iWn7vCrkVB0 X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IFnAzMRGwtz/8zquKCPlymyzkKUO/7xZKz0RoC7joWgtdSNoonl0T44mkNuOpnoarI8K8xiN8+Lkg49FVyaBj8= X-Received: by 2002:a05:6a20:b2a5:b0:1a0:fd1c:c7d4 with SMTP id ei37-20020a056a20b2a500b001a0fd1cc7d4mr2138508pzb.44.1709322298153; Fri, 01 Mar 2024 11:44:58 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 2002:a05:6a10:e208:b0:538:f8d:c540 with HTTP; Fri, 1 Mar 2024 11:44:57 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: From: Paul Winalski Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 14:44:57 -0500 Message-ID: To: Steve Nickolas Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Message-ID-Hash: DRVVWI2UM732YGJRH3DF4CASUSOPHUIM X-Message-ID-Hash: DRVVWI2UM732YGJRH3DF4CASUSOPHUIM X-MailFrom: paul.winalski@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: TUHS main list X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Of flags and keyletters List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On 3/1/24, Steve Nickolas wrote: > On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > >> One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the >> number >> of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a >> deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage. IBM did a similar thing in their use of the term "main storage" for what the whole rest of the industry calls "main memory". They felt that "memory" was too anthropomorphic. > I prolly got the term "switch" from IBM/Microsoft, but that's the term I'm > used to (and my own implementations of Unix utilities do use the term in > their error messages). The term "switch" for command line options is pretty much universal--it's not IBM specific and predates the existence of Microsoft by about two decades. Back in the 1950s when you ran one program at a time on a computer, there were toggle switches on the control panel that could be read by the running program. Combinations of these were in common use to select various options of program behavior. When operating systems came along, you couldn't pass the info to running programs by having the operator physically flip a switch on the console. I remember that IBM DOS/360 had a Job Control Language (JCL) statement "// UPSI" (UPSI = User Program Switch Indicators) that allowed one to set the "switches" as seen by the running user program. When interactive and timesharing systems came along, they supported command line options in place of the original switches. In DEC's operating systems for PDP-8 -10, and -11, these were originally a slash character followed by a single letter or digit. The slash was used because it resembles a toggle switch. Unix was using the slash as a directory separator in pathnames and so they used the hyphen to introduce command options instead. Microsoft's command line interface for the PC was modeled after DEC's RT-11 operating system and used slash for command options. When they implemented Unix-style directory paths, they had to use backslash as the separator because forward slash was already in use. -Paul W.