🚀 go-pugleaf

Scott Ophof (ophof@SERVER.uwindsor.ca) wrote:

 ...
: As a relative newcomer to Unix (re experience level, but no newcomer
: to the mainframe computer world) I'm very curious why the Unix
: community still seems to insist on 1-char commands, when the times
: of the slow teletype are long gone (even in the army, right?  :-) ).
: The *need* is gone, so why hang onto those old habits?
: Besides, with responses to those short commands often so long that
: the information nearly drowns in a sea of noise, or so short and
: cryptic that it virtually needs a decoder, my feeling of puzzlement
: only increases.

I'm not sure I fully understand what the above is getting at,
but (ignoring the terminal speed aspect)
I believe Mr. Ophof's argument is
    "computers are getting to be so fast at running the commands
     that the important thing is to tell it what the right thing to do is".

Well, as my computer gets faster and faster, (assuming I can find
ways of continuing to finance it) it's increasingly true that the
speed at which I can use my computer is limited by the speed at
which I can feed it indicators of my desires.  Even back in the
110 baud days, I usually couldn't overtype the computer's ability
to read characters.

So my argument is
    "the speed at which you can interact is limited
     by how fast you can type(or whatever) the commands,
     so single character commands have advantages."

Considering the typing speed of non-touch-typists makes this 
argument more powerful; just going from 1 to 2 character commands
would double the noticeable time-cost of hunt-typing commands.

Anyway, that's why I've added a "R" (reply, include text, don't ask)
to decrease the delay between when I know what I want to do, and when
it happens.

Kris A. Kugel	908-842-2707
hico2!kak	kak@hico2.westmark.com