Funny Unix utility names, continued
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!gwyn at UTEXAS-11
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!gwyn at UTEXAS-11
Sun Jan 3 23:28:08 AEST 1982
In any case, users quickly adopt WHATEVER names they have to use. I'm
sure you converse with other Unix users by saying things like "let's
cat the file, maybe later grepping for `foo' will tell us ...".
Some names are a bit TOO cute (like "dog") for regular use.
Software Tools in Pascal contains some rough equivalents of Unix
utilities: grep becomes find, cat becomes concat, etc. Some of these
may be more understandable by the uninitiated than the standard names,
but they tend to take more keystrokes to type.
I would urge strongly that programs have PRONOUNCEABLE names;
I know a fellow who loves to use consonant-only abbreviations such as
PltXfr for "Plot Transfer". It is hard to discuss program usage when
one has to spell out the names rather than just pronounce them as words.
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