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* Re: [TUHS] [OT] Re:  earliest Unix roff
@ 2019-09-19 18:50 Norman Wilson
  2019-09-19 19:00 ` Nemo Nusquam
  2019-09-19 22:44 ` [TUHS] [OT] " Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2019-09-19 18:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

KatolaZ:
> We can discuss whether the split was necessary or "right" in the first
> instance, as we could discuss whether it was good or not for cat(1) to
> leave Murray Hill in 1979 with no options and come back from Berkley
> with a source code doubled in size and 9 options in 1982.

We needn't discuss that (though of course there are opinions and
mine are the correct ones), but in the interest of historic accuracy,
I should point out by 1979 (V7) cat had developed a single option -u
to turn off stdio buffering.

Sometime before 1984 or so, that option was removed, and cat was
simplified to just
	while ((n = read(fd, buf, sizeof(buf))) > 0)
		write(1, buf, n)
(error checking elided for clarity)
which worked just fine for the rest of the life of the Research
system.

So it's true that BSD added needless (in my humble but correct
opinion) options, but not that it had none before they touched it.
Unless all those other programs were stuffed into cat in an earlier
Berkeley system, but I don't think they were.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
(Three cats, no options)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] [OT] Re: earliest Unix roff
@ 2019-09-19 21:19 Norman Wilson
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2019-09-19 21:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

Arthur Krewat:

  Which is better, creating a whole new binary to put in /usr/bin to do a 
  single task, or add a flag to cat?

  Which is better, a proliferation of binaries w/standalone source code, 
  or a single code tree that can handle slightly different tasks and save 
  space?

======

Which is simpler to write correctly, to debug, and to maintain:
a simple program that does a single task, or a huge single program
with lots of tasks mashed together?

Which is easier to understand and use, individual programs each
with a few options specialized to a particular task, or a monolith
with many more options some of which apply only to one task or
another, others to all?

What are you trying to optimize for?  The speed with which
programmers can churn out yet another featureful utility full
of bugs and corner cases, or the ease with which the end-user
can figure out what tool to use and how to use it?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] earliest Unix roff
@ 2019-09-16 14:51 Larry McVoy
  2019-09-16 14:57 ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2019-09-16 14:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 08:10:48AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 1:52 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
> 
> > I use the standalone Info reader (named info) if I want to look at the
> > Info output.
> >
> Fair enough, but be careful, while I admit I have not looked in a while,
> info(gnu) relies on emacs keybindings and a number of very emacs'ish things.
> Every time I have tried to deal with it, I have unprogram my fingers and
> reset them to emacs.
> 
> If it would have used more(1) [or even less(1)] then I would not be as
> annoyed.
> Unix had fine tools [man(1), more(1), et al] and rms and friends felt the
> need to replace them with ITS-like programs.

I hate texinfo and friends.  I get why it is better than man, but man was
good enough, more than good enough, and the GNU project took everything
it could find and destroyed the man pages.

If you have something like perl that needs a zillion sub pages, info
makes sense.  For just a man page, info is horrible.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2019-09-19 22:45 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2019-09-19 18:50 [TUHS] [OT] Re: earliest Unix roff Norman Wilson
2019-09-19 19:00 ` Nemo Nusquam
2019-09-19 20:18   ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-19 20:33     ` Arthur Krewat
2019-09-19 20:39       ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-19 21:46       ` Steve Nickolas
2019-09-19 21:51         ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-19 20:42     ` [TUHS] " Andy Kosela
2019-09-19 22:44 ` [TUHS] [OT] " Rob Pike
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-09-19 21:19 Norman Wilson
2019-09-16 14:51 [TUHS] " Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 14:57 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 15:14   ` Richard Salz
2019-09-16 16:10     ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 16:16       ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 16:26         ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 16:31           ` Richard Salz
2019-09-16 16:45             ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 17:19               ` KatolaZ
2019-09-16 17:37                 ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 18:09                   ` [TUHS] [OT] " KatolaZ
2019-09-16 18:19                     ` Jon Steinhart

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