🚀 go-pugleaf

There must be thousands of abbreviations in unix.
This is often convenient because you don't need to type in so many
characters. But it can also be inconvenient at times when you don't
know them all especially when no information about the abbreviation within 
the manpages, the infopages or whatever is available.

No, i am not forgetting to mention the FAQ's. they are important!!!
(btw: i cannot estimate the tremendous efforts made by some of the
kind souls who do FAQ's. You are very kind, thanx so much!!!!!!!!!)

There are books about it , but they are not free while there are so many
wonderful free GNU programs out there. (with perl amongst them!!)

 `apropos� can help but in many pages it does not help at all.

And there is at least one abbreviation-list out there which has
some unix-acronyms ( i found one in a directory 
/unix/comp.sources.misc/volume32 which covers
some abbreviations, but is 5 years old.
If you download it, it gives you a shell-script called whats which is
userfriendly and has about 6000 entries, but these are acronyms of all
kinds)
I am not talking about general or mixed abbreviation-lists with
shell-support. What I am really talking about a unix-specific list of
abbreviations (or at least all the computer-subjects which are part of the
whole unix-theme , but perhaps that is not specific enough and could
expand too much ...?)

Now I am just asking:

Do I see this correctly? That is, are there no other unix-specific
abbreviation lists to download?

If this is right, then should we change that?

Could someone create a cgi-script , put it on his webpage and
let everbody collect items? Would that be a good idea?

Has someone privately collected such a list and could be
encouraged to share it with us all?

What should be a good format for a file containing abbreviations?
Would the `whats� format be satisfying enough?
(look at  e.g. 
ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/doc/acronyms/whats 
for `whats�)
any ideas on what format could be clever ?
( e.g. ls:list screen: explanations on how the abbreviation came from
, that example is  a list separated by
colons. should the abbreviation be in upper case and every corresponding
explanation in upper case , too like LS:List Screen )
                                     ^^ ^    ^       



Why am i daring to ask again about such a list?

1) not every unix-willing person in the world knows each and every
   abbreviation
2) there are so many people that have the problem of not having english
   as their main language. Unix abbreviations are mostly in english. 
   A list of abbreviations could help a lot.
3) A well structured list of items could help in giving a programmer
   some hints on where abbreviations are used already.
3) The number of acronyms still grows and acronyms are often not
   covered in the man-pages. Sometimes i even think that the authors
   don't know how the name came about :)
   (even that would be okay! perhaps it is only a numbering letter)
4) explained acronyms can help - remembering things better.
		- can keep some unix-users from hating unix :)?
5) - can help raising the subject of acronyms within unix, 
   that may help making unix more user-friendly.

There may be 1000 other reasons to do one list of acronyms but
i am running out of arguments right now. :)

And then about the time such a list could take:

One kind soul collecting acronyms could be a life-award- worthy 
attempt but also could take much too long.
A consortium of people trying to put things together could be
better but needs very good coordination.

The easiest but also error-resulting way could be to
have a cgi-script on one's webpage that can do the collecting.
something like `whats� with the ability to have the same abbrev 
many times if neccesary.


4) linux and free-bsd and of course all the gnu-utilities help in
    increasing the numbers of new unix users every time. this list
    would help them, i bet!

yeah, i admit: even i would love to have such a list and i have
   over 200 aliases which are ... you guessed it: abbreviations:))

--
Matthias

(this message came from Hamburg/Germany and i am trembling while posting this
 mail but i hope it does a good job)