Aucbvax.4469 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Thu Oct 15 23:02:52 1981 '^' as alternate pipe symbol >From decvax!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Thu Oct 15 20:37:13 1981 One very good reason NOT to delete the alternate pipe symbol '^' from the Bourne shell is that many people like it and use it, because it is "lowercase" on many keyboards while '|' usually is shifted. If I was designing the language from scratch, I would not put too much weight on this -- there are only so many lowercase symbols, and you have to use uppercase sometimes -- but de-implementing a feature that is really in use is another matter. If it had been deleted at the abandonment of the ASR33, ok. Even deleting it at Bourne-shell time might have been ok. Too late now, at least without a compelling reason. Henry Spencer ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.