Re: [tlug] epcEditor

[Shimpei Yamashita <shimpei@example.com>]

[Michael Moyle (Re: [tlug] epcEditor) writes:]
>> However, I am going to argue that command line is not arcane. There is a
>> consistent syntax to using unix commands. 

Riiiiiight. That's why my multiplatform kill-processes-matching-string
script has to spend many lines trying to detect what kind of ps(1)
that particular machine has. Oh, you're talking about consistency
within one operating system? Then those annoying flags--why does
tar(1) not accept - in front of its options (GNUtar doesn't count),
while ls(1) doesn't accept options without - ? Why can you concatenate
options into a single flag (e.g. rsync -agov) on some commands but not
others?  Why do tar(1) and cpio(1), which are competing standards with
almost identical functions, have syntax that are almost completely
different? Why does dd use = to link options to arguments, when almost
no other standard Unix utility does so? And so on.

And yes, I do know the "why" to many of these questions. Doesn't
matter. It's still inconsistent and arcane. It's always been that way.
If you wanted a consistent command line, you used VMS. Mmmmm, VMS....

Well, VMS's command line sucked, true, but it sucked consistently.

-- 
Shimpei Yamashita                               http://www.shimpei.org/
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?    -- Steve Wright