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Article #4381Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?
From: Barry Margolin
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 00:00
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 00:00
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2298 bytes
In article <3381BD86.95E@uab.ericsson.se>, Michael Salmon <Michael.Salmon@uab.ericsson.se> wrote: >My favorite acronym is ls, List Structure, apparently borrowed directly >from multics. It's an abbreviation for "list", not "list structure". It was indeed borrowed from Multics. On Multics, most commands had full names (where all the words were spelled out, with underscores between them) and a short name (usually formed by taking the first one or two consonants in each word). In this case, the full name was "list", and the short name was "ls" (similarly there were "delete" and "dl", "read_mail" and "rdm", "send_mail" and "sdm" (as you can see, the conventions for forming abbreviations were somewhat loose)). The Unix folks punted the long names, resulting in all the cryptic commands we now suffer through. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com BBN Corporation, Cambridge, MA (BBN customers, call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support) Support the anti-spam movement; see <http://www.cauce.org/>
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10eb3b,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gid10eb3b,public X-Google-Thread: 1103af,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gid1103af,public X-Google-Thread: fa705,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gidfa705,public X-Google-Thread: 11035d,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gid11035d,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public X-Google-Thread: faa64,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gidfaa64,public X-Google-Thread: f4bda,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gidf4bda,public X-Google-Thread: 1012a6,3d362ec564ebdcba X-Google-Attributes: gid1012a6,public From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: 1997/05/21 Message-ID: <5luf10$ajl@pasilla.bbnplanet.com> X-Deja-AN: 242796598 Sender: barmar@pasilla.bbnplanet.com References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <EA6HHD.AAF@serval.net.wsu.edu> <5lk9kxlsxa.fsf@tequila.systemsz.cs.yale.edu> <3381BD86.95E@uab.ericsson.se> Organization: BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris