🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2193@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
+Sure, and lets do away with the convention of requiring whitespace between the
+command and arguments, and between argument too. :-)

Okay, okay -- I exaggerated a bit.  It's just that I spent my formative years
coding FORTRAN...

+
+Seriously, if it weren't for the ability of Unix shells to accept the pipe
+operator without delimiting whitespace, it would be a complete non-issue.
+Nobody would even think to question it.

What in the world makes you think that?  It seems as obvious as any other
evolution that has taken place that allows greater flexibility.  I hereby
declare that, even if Unix shells didn't allow whitespace surrounding pipe
symbols, I would have thought of it.

In fact, as I recall, when I first started using pipes, I placed whitespace
around them because it looked right, not because I read about it in the man
pages.  I also didn't put whitespace around the symbols when I wanted to
crunch lots onto a line (I have this paranoid thing about real long command
lines), without being told that it was a great `feature' of csh that I could
decide which way I wanted to do it.  

Unix is a marvelous invironment, and every modern operating system probably
owes it a bit of homage, but it is not the sacred chalise of All that is
Right and Holy.

+-larry

ken
-- 
     Ken Yarnall                 ///   yarnall@usceast.cs.scarolina.EDU
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