Re: symlink chain.

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 01/04/2015 06:28 PM, Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
> On Jan 4, 2015, at 8:34 PM, Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jan 4, 12:49pm, Ray Andrews wrote:
>> }
>> } But, would we not agree that it is the natural thing to prefer
>> } cumulative switches over limiting switches?  Is it not intuitive that
>> } as you 'add' switches you 'add' features?
>>
>> There's no answer for this that fits all cases.  In an ideal world,
>> one would always think of the minimal action and then build on it,
>> but the world is rarely ideal.  More often there exists something
>> that has a purpose or mechanism very similar to a new idea, and so
>> that something is altered to support the new idea.  A lot of times,
>> that isn't an additive process.
> Also consider an alternate (and equally valid) point of view in which
> commands should be a sort of variable-length encoding. That is, the
> shortest commands (the ones without switches) would ideally represent
> *common* actions, not necessarily *minimal* actions.
>
> vq
Yes.  We always are stuck with the limits of language there, but there's 
no doubt that the 'nix world has attempted to do just that. The common 
commands are normally, what? four letters or fewer.
>