Re: Thought I'd throw this in ;-) for the sake of conversation.

[Chris Humphries <chris@unixfu.net>]

Nick Roberts wrote:
> Bj�rn Persson wrote:
> 
>> stephane richard wrote:
>>
>>> a.. Unix:
>>>       % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
>>>       % rm *.o  rm:.o: No such file or directory
>>>       % ls
>>>       %
>>
>>
>> Someone has screwed up that one, including removing the space that 
>> constituted the actual shot in the foot. It's supposed to look like this:
>>
>>    % ls
>>    foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
>>    % rm * .o
>>    rm: .o: No such file or directory
>>    % ls
>>    %
> 
> 
> And in fact, a fellow student at my university did precisely this. I had 
> the unfortunate task of telling her that all her coursework for the last 
> two weeks was gone. Luckily she got it back (from systems daily backup), 
> but lost a day's work all the same.
> 
> And people still ask me, in querulous tones, why I hate Unix so much.
> 

I'd rather use something that enables me to have the power to shoot
my foot off, then slowly bleed and deny any bullet holes existed before
you recieved it, until enough people see the holes.

Think we all have done the rm mistake, it is a learning process, like
anything else. There is nothing inheritly wrong with unix and the rm
command, it does exactly as you instructed it to do.. easy fix: don't
tell it to do what you don't want it to do. Ignorance is no excuse :)

Some people new to unix/linux have rm aliased to rm -i, so it asks you
if you really want to remove what you instructed it to :)

It is just how it is. Unix enables you to have complete control of the
os and with that comes an understanding that you are behind the wheel
and should know what you are doing. Just like Ada or any other
programming language :)

Bet your fellow student will not make that same rm mistake in a while ;)