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

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

[stephane richard]

If you take time to read all this (including the Ada version) there's some 
basis of truth to this.
a.. Ada: After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently 
load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. This 
goes in a rendez-vous task until the ambulance gets here along with proper 
bullet infury materials and the hospital already knows you're on your way 
there.
a.. C: You shoot yourself in the foot.
a.. C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot 
them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible 
since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at 
others and saying, "That's me, over there."
a.. FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out 
of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of 
bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.
a.. Modula-2: After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in 
this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
a.. COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place 
ARM.HAND.FINGER. on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to 
HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.
a.. LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which 
you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot 
yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself 
in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the 
appendage which holds ....
a.. BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, 
continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
a.. FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.
a.. APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how 
to do it in fewer characters.
a.. Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
a.. SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, 
shoot yourself in the right foot.
a.. Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot. (Winner 
of the Jason E. Bean Memorial "Pee Yourself Laughing" Award)
a.. HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. 
Answer the result.
a.. Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the 
trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of 
the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
a.. Unix:
      % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
      % rm *.o  rm:.o: No such file or directory
      % ls
      %
a.. Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can 
too.
a.. Revelation: You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as 
you figure out what all these bullets are for.
a.. Visual Basic: You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much 
fun doing it that you won't care.
a.. Prolog: You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The 
program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to 
explain.
a.. 370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document 
explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes 
back deep-fried.
a.. Assembly: You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you 
must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.
a.. Perl: You hack your leg off with your trusty Swiss Army chainsaw.
a.. PVM: You send the gun a message to shoot you in the foot. Two hours 
later, the gun goes off, missing you entirely and injuring a bystander.
a.. Tcl/Tk: You tickle the bottom of your feet, but it doesn't seem to do 
anything.

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

[Björn Persson]

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
    %

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

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

[Nick Roberts]

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.

-- 
Nick Roberts

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

[Chris Humphries]

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 ;)

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

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Nick Roberts a écrit :
>>    % 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.
> 

Talking about good ol' times... VMS...
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

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

[Benjamin Ketcham]

Nick Roberts <nick.roberts@acm.org> wrote:
> Bj?rn Persson wrote:
>> 
>>    % 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.

Good thing she didn't lose her work on a Windows machine (a much more
common occurrence, IME), since it's so rare to have a daily backup that
includes the Windows machines.  At least Unix only loses your data
when you specifically tell it to!  I've helped a few people over the
years with lost files on Unix (often times the files were not deleted,
but rather moved or linked in unintended ways), but by far most of the
"lost data" help I've had to give is under Windows; and sadly, there's
often little that can be done.  Web browser or word processor freezes up
after you've typed in several pages of text... it's right there on the
screen but you just can't have it... sorry pal, you know the drill: reboot.

> And people still ask me, in querulous tones, why I hate Unix so much.

There are plenty of things to hate about Unix.  OTOH, like democracy,
many people seem to find that Unix is "the worst OS out there, except
for all the others".  And in any case, you haven't brought up any of
the *valid* criticisms of Unix, IMO.  The problem you have encountered
is a symptom of a larger issue: there's no standard, sane environment
for beginners in Unix.  You can alias "rm" to "rm -i" (also remembering
to do "mv -i", "ln -i", etc.; and there's generally a way to make
shells not "clobber" existing files with ">", if you like that sort of thing).
The problem is, that's not the default!  It's up to individual sysadmins
to recognize the issue and implement their own piecemeal solutions -- or
not.  Same goes for "help".  There should never be a desktop OS where typing
"help" doesn't bring up a (standard) help environment of some sort.

Unix is a good OS *technology*, which nobody has quite managed to knit
together into a cohesive package suitable for beginners, yet.  Criticize
it for its flaws, not for your flaws in understanding or effectively
using it.

--Benjamin

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

[Nick Roberts]

Chris Humphries wrote:

> 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.

Funnily enough, I have only just downloaded the full and unabridged Cygwin 
onto my Win XP machine. I actually /physically/ felt a sense of relief and 
reduced tension as I did this, knowing that I now have a real development 
environment available, rather than Windows, which just isn't.

It's hard to explain, to the outside world, how important the deep sense of 
personal empowerment (hehe) is that comes from a having proper development 
environment, to a hardwired programmer. However, I have got that sense much 
stronger from environments such as Smalltalk and even the likes of Python 
and Ruby than I ever have from Unix (and its shells).

> 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 :)
> 
> 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 :)

But my point is that Unix, in its entire design philosophy, runs counter to 
the design philosophy of Ada. Ada has been carefully designed to help 
protect people against accidentally shooting themselves in the foot, 
whereas Unix seems to have wilfully designed it to make this as easy as 
possible. What excuse is there for that, other than sheer mischief?

 > 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 :)

So why doesn't rm come with the -i behaviour as default? There could always 
be a -f switch to switch it off.

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

No, I'll bet that my fellow student has avoided ever using Unix again, and 
I couldn't blame her.

-- 
Nick Roberts

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

[Frank J. Lhota]

"Nick Roberts" <nick.roberts@acm.org> wrote in message 
news:2rig76F1b49udU1@uni-berlin.de...
>>    % 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.

I remember once wanting to copy all *.txt from the working directory to 
another location. I mistakenly entered the command

    % cp *.txt

leaving off the destination directory. This did not produce an error 
message.  You see, there were only two *.txt files at the time, so this 
command simply copied over the second one with the contents of the first 
one!

> And people still ask me, in querulous tones, why I hate Unix so much.

Well, OTOH it can also be quite powerful. The ideal OS should combine both 
power and safety.

> -- 
> Nick Roberts 

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

[Brian May]

>>>>> "Frank" == Frank J Lhota <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> writes:

    Frank> I remember once wanting to copy all *.txt from the working
    Frank> directory to another location. I mistakenly entered the
    Frank> command

    Frank> % cp *.txt

    Frank> leaving off the destination directory. This did not produce
    Frank> an error message.  You see, there were only two *.txt files
    Frank> at the time, so this command simply copied over the second
    Frank> one with the contents of the first one!

In a university Prac class, I once typed in:

% ls ../abc.*
../abc.c ../abc.bak

$ mv ../abc.*

% ls

% ls ..
../abc.bak

The (confused) tutor thought I had lost all my work. Fortunately, I
realized (after studying these commands for a while) I hadn't lost
anything...

(at the time I think I was more familiar with MS-DOS; this was a
valuable learning experience in differences between how command line
parameters are processed between the two systems)

Now I have "mv", "cp" and "rm" aliased to use the "-i" flag.
-- 
Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>

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

[Wes Groleau]

Chris Humphries wrote:
> Bet your fellow student will not make that same rm mistake in a while ;)

Place I once worked at....
We asked the CM people to rename a subdirectory of a project.
Head of CM reamed us out thoroughly: "Do NOT ask my people
to write scripts!  They are not programmers!  YOU write the
scripts and they will run them!"

We wrote the script, and they ran it, with their privileges.
Unfortunately, we omitted one directory level in a rather
long path.  So they deleted the entire project.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/Wes

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

[Chris Humphries]

Nick Roberts wrote:
> Chris Humphries wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> 
> Funnily enough, I have only just downloaded the full and unabridged 
> Cygwin onto my Win XP machine. I actually /physically/ felt a sense of 
> relief and reduced tension as I did this, knowing that I now have a real 
> development environment available, rather than Windows, which just isn't.
> 
> It's hard to explain, to the outside world, how important the deep sense 
> of personal empowerment (hehe) is that comes from a having proper 
> development environment, to a hardwired programmer. However, I have got 
> that sense much stronger from environments such as Smalltalk and even 
> the likes of Python and Ruby than I ever have from Unix (and its shells).
> 

Guess, out of boredom, you will not be taking a look at OO korn shell?
hehe. Good points :)

-Chris