Asri-unix.407 net.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!gwyn@UTEXAS-11 Sun Jan 3 23:28:08 1982 Funny Unix utility names, continued In any case, users quickly adopt WHATEVER names they have to use. I'm sure you converse with other Unix users by saying things like "let's cat the file, maybe later grepping for `foo' will tell us ...". Some names are a bit TOO cute (like "dog") for regular use. Software Tools in Pascal contains some rough equivalents of Unix utilities: grep becomes find, cat becomes concat, etc. Some of these may be more understandable by the uninitiated than the standard names, but they tend to take more keystrokes to type. I would urge strongly that programs have PRONOUNCEABLE names; I know a fellow who loves to use consonant-only abbreviations such as PltXfr for "Plot Transfer". It is hard to discuss program usage when one has to spell out the names rather than just pronounce them as words. ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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.