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bh=aTcJbYHYASCZxg3IHIEIa+l9K295Es4s4YFe68+dwhY=; b=MjjjtwubWfZUc1BgkapOxiDuAgCW7wP6r20LWbqRJFyehYo+w5rHTJ3CtT42EvelF7 C58L4QuukOPFrRNlBSCwtrzwdgvC07yaY2JY+kteO3QmjSCYUq/1xnzndxokzRMVnU5D mC8cSFL02AMR36/Fb4+nuzZlubiArWNzq5RJ75kT/iY3WfvySKbYOyY1IMMK4lHaAV2T 3LJkW0cKaggPOwZDA54vDXB+q5yhyoCROHEBAymgx7mqTuDOreCuM0gkjzAxTkEGiS6/ QvgiKaqzNaQbz+OeYZXTgBr4/42aH1QqKyWZnKnAcYQ5iHOHjafn2e2kkg3Z8Z8AEqsY XkDg== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0YwKR+uILteevKbTkxLyh4isSrGU7JDrQ0BHseNGnlJ8SDDUbXMU KKe/ZEz9RctiXrU+gOnWRqU1non+nvzGgHKGzd4rBAG+yOGeGP8vMLOgquV2p2bk5HHDBH1n5gj kTNlbDdvNoR4RPZESMnv3qC+rC/+AU9leKSgi X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IGXrj+n7W8o29E8fJQol5xXHjz21fmzfURRyxlecOZwNd2GpxZPkbv8Tf82IUo3o7vFPC+GjIxqF4jO7KwITP4= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:be8b:0:b0:2da:357:ad29 with SMTP id a11-20020a2ebe8b000000b002da0357ad29mr7547971ljr.19.1713109884200; Sun, 14 Apr 2024 08:51:24 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <97793422-1543-4ba6-b52b-ff93eba03ab1@eastlink.ca> <7333cf23-1fe7-4b3d-a7c1-f07697c5f062@eastlink.ca> <1e53a3f7-9bdb-45ae-81c7-7d0ec1a6a541@app.fastmail.com> <3cc19e86-e953-4e2f-9e57-30ff84f15fdf@eastlink.ca> <0a0b9ec3-4661-4386-9fbf-b3152a46001e@eastlink.ca> <9416dc0a-3e41-4229-a9e1-239411ab3c17@eastlink.ca> <4a1e027c-a9d8-4306-bf3b-e1282914644c@app.fastmail.com> <4e9aa98c-9b5d-4e22-b7fc-8c50a9af9ada@eastlink.ca> In-Reply-To: <4e9aa98c-9b5d-4e22-b7fc-8c50a9af9ada@eastlink.ca> From: Bart Schaefer Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2024 08:51:13 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: triviality regarding $# counts To: Ray Andrews Cc: zsh-users@zsh.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Seq: 29827 Archived-At: X-Loop: zsh-users@zsh.org Errors-To: zsh-users-owner@zsh.org Precedence: list Precedence: bulk Sender: zsh-users-request@zsh.org X-no-archive: yes List-Id: List-Help: , List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Owner: List-Archive: On Sun, Apr 14, 2024 at 6:24=E2=80=AFAM Ray Andrews wrote: > > I know it's far too late to fret this stuff, still it's interesting to co= ntemplate these design level issues. P.F. did the right thing not splittin= g by default but he should have left the empties in by default too, IMHO. > [...] > the 'doctrine of least surprise' should prevail. The trouble with that "doctrine" is that what is surprising is subjective and context-dependent both in usage and in time. When these decisions were made, the largest number of zsh adoptees would have been more surprised by having empty elements kept than removed. Mysteriously receiving error messages like ls: : No such file or directory would have been the surprising thing. Further, many commands neither understand nor do anything useful with empty string arguments, and zsh was intended first to be an interactive command shell and only second a programming language (just a better one than BSD csh).