4 ms·

The problem isn't the 35k, the problem is now we all have to spend a little bit of extra brain capacity, remembering the difference between 'more' and 'less', a

The problem isn't the 35k, the problem is now we all have to spend a little bit of extra brain capacity, remembering the difference between 'more' and 'less', and how while you would imagine 'more' is better (based on the traditional English meaning of the words), actually, 'more' is the lesser product. I wonder how many hours have been wasted altogether on people learning, and misunderstanding, which of more or less they should use?

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
Plus, `more` as a pager command at least makes a tiny bit of sense, but `less` is a ridiculously obscure command name for beginners.
- Sylos 10y ago
  Display less at once on the screen, and make it scrollable instead, worked perfectly fine for me as an analogy. I actually find "more" less logical, because I can't find a similar analogy for it...
  - zdkl 10y ago
    Matter of taste, I like the image of scroll to see more
Sylos 10y ago
I don't think it's that bad. This is one of the cases where your usual ignorance towards new/different things is pretty effective. At least for me personally, 'less' was what I always saw everywhere being used, and had used myself many times before I discovered that 'more' was a thing. And when I discovered 'more', it took me maybe a minute to figure out that it's pretty much exactly like 'less', but that I didn't like it as much, and with everyone else seemingly agreeing on that, I didn't put any further thought to it.
hughperkins 10y ago
yeah, calling it less may have been fun at the time, but its poor ui design. if you call a method 'add_one', having it multiply by three might be what you intend, but its not very intuitive.
- oblio 10y ago
  Heh, all the basic UNIX tools reek of geek design and bad UX. cat -> from the obscure verb "catenate". A regular user would never, ever find the connection unless someone points it out. It should be "join" or "merge" or "unify" or something. dd -> "data description". Really? It should be "blockcopy" or something. grep -> "globally search a regular expression and print". Again, really? It should be "find" or "search". ls, mv, cp, rm are kind of ok but in this day and age they should definitely be list, move, copy, remove by default (with aliases if need be). Heck, 99% of Unix commands are too short for their own sake. cron -> "Chronos". Really?, third edition. It should be "scheduler" or something. I mean, at this point we've all moved on and have memorized all these commands and parameters, but a lot of brain cells have died for no real benefit to humanity.
  - arbitrage 10y ago
    concatenate: link (things) together in a chain or series. This is a word that perfectly describes exactly what cat does. Cat doesn't merge; that's ambiguous. Is a merge an interleaving? Sometimes yes. What does unify even mean in the sense of chaining data streams? Join? Close, but still unclear what it does. Does it operate on files? And what would happen to the already widely deployed join command that does something completely different? Concatenate is a great word. Great words deserve to be used. I'm sorry that some of us haven't seen the crushing need to reduce our vocabulary to the double plus good amount of words in the newspeak lexicon. What I'm not sorry about is that new users have to spend time to learn the system they're mucking around in before they can be useful with it. That's not a design flaw; that's a feature.
    - oblio 10y ago
      Such a nice comment, shame it's wrong: https://kb.iu.edu/d/abnd https://kb.iu.edu/d/abnd I'd mind "concat" less than I mind "cat". Oh, and by the way, some of the people who use these commands are not native English speakers. "catenate" is definitely not a word they'd learn early on (most likely not even later on). This is not about "dumbing down the language" it is about "making it accessible to more people, avoiding unnecessary complexity". These are supposed to be basic OS commands, not poetry. Oh, and to add insult to injury, cat covers at least two different usages which IMO should be split up, at least through aliases. There should be a "display" or "show" or "view" command which does what it says on the tin: it displays/shows the file. And the second command would be the "join"/"merge"/whatever command that does the merging. Regarding join, I'm pretty sure cat predates join. > What I'm not sorry about is that new users have to spend time to learn the system they're mucking around in before they can be useful with it. That's not a design flaw; that's a feature. I used to wear a T-shirt with this: http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24 http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24 It's a cute joke, but it does contain a nugget of truth, seen in the elitist remark you made.
a_thro_away 10y ago
You present a false argument. I have never "needed" nor used less, ever, and I suffered no concussion. Imagine having just one tool; you had better like it. If you hit upon a time when your chosen tool needs more functionality, that is when you go looking for a different tool. Luckily, that is what makes the Unix ecosystem strong and flexible and personal. All I have been seeing lately the want to dumb things down at the expense of flexibility. I have been building and admin'ing diverse Unix systems (and uVax, Win), well, 1980s forever, on very large and very small sites.
theoh 10y ago
If you know that it's a reference to the phrase "less is more", both the similarity and intended capability is humourously conveyed...

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

Plus, `more` as a pager command at least makes a tiny bit of sense, but `less` is a ridiculously obscure command name for beginners.

Sylos 10y ago
Display less at once on the screen, and make it scrollable instead, worked perfectly fine for me as an analogy. I actually find "more" less logical, because I can't find a similar analogy for it...
- zdkl 10y ago
  Matter of taste, I like the image of scroll to see more

Sylos 10y ago

I don't think it's that bad. This is one of the cases where your usual ignorance towards new/different things is pretty effective. At least for me personally, 'less' was what I always saw everywhere being used, and had used myself many times before I discovered that 'more' was a thing. And when I discovered 'more', it took me maybe a minute to figure out that it's pretty much exactly like 'less', but that I didn't like it as much, and with everyone else seemingly agreeing on that, I didn't put any further thought to it.

hughperkins 10y ago

yeah, calling it less may have been fun at the time, but its poor ui design. if you call a method 'add_one', having it multiply by three might be what you intend, but its not very intuitive.

oblio 10y ago
Heh, all the basic UNIX tools reek of geek design and bad UX. cat -> from the obscure verb "catenate". A regular user would never, ever find the connection unless someone points it out. It should be "join" or "merge" or "unify" or something. dd -> "data description". Really? It should be "blockcopy" or something. grep -> "globally search a regular expression and print". Again, really? It should be "find" or "search". ls, mv, cp, rm are kind of ok but in this day and age they should definitely be list, move, copy, remove by default (with aliases if need be). Heck, 99% of Unix commands are too short for their own sake. cron -> "Chronos". Really?, third edition. It should be "scheduler" or something. I mean, at this point we've all moved on and have memorized all these commands and parameters, but a lot of brain cells have died for no real benefit to humanity.
- arbitrage 10y ago
  concatenate: link (things) together in a chain or series. This is a word that perfectly describes exactly what cat does. Cat doesn't merge; that's ambiguous. Is a merge an interleaving? Sometimes yes. What does unify even mean in the sense of chaining data streams? Join? Close, but still unclear what it does. Does it operate on files? And what would happen to the already widely deployed join command that does something completely different? Concatenate is a great word. Great words deserve to be used. I'm sorry that some of us haven't seen the crushing need to reduce our vocabulary to the double plus good amount of words in the newspeak lexicon. What I'm not sorry about is that new users have to spend time to learn the system they're mucking around in before they can be useful with it. That's not a design flaw; that's a feature.
  - oblio 10y ago
    Such a nice comment, shame it's wrong: https://kb.iu.edu/d/abnd https://kb.iu.edu/d/abnd I'd mind "concat" less than I mind "cat". Oh, and by the way, some of the people who use these commands are not native English speakers. "catenate" is definitely not a word they'd learn early on (most likely not even later on). This is not about "dumbing down the language" it is about "making it accessible to more people, avoiding unnecessary complexity". These are supposed to be basic OS commands, not poetry. Oh, and to add insult to injury, cat covers at least two different usages which IMO should be split up, at least through aliases. There should be a "display" or "show" or "view" command which does what it says on the tin: it displays/shows the file. And the second command would be the "join"/"merge"/whatever command that does the merging. Regarding join, I'm pretty sure cat predates join. > What I'm not sorry about is that new users have to spend time to learn the system they're mucking around in before they can be useful with it. That's not a design flaw; that's a feature. I used to wear a T-shirt with this: http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24 http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24 It's a cute joke, but it does contain a nugget of truth, seen in the elitist remark you made.

a_thro_away 10y ago

You present a false argument. I have never "needed" nor used less, ever, and I suffered no concussion. Imagine having just one tool; you had better like it. If you hit upon a time when your chosen tool needs more functionality, that is when you go looking for a different tool. Luckily, that is what makes the Unix ecosystem strong and flexible and personal. All I have been seeing lately the want to dumb things down at the expense of flexibility. I have been building and admin'ing diverse Unix systems (and uVax, Win), well, 1980s forever, on very large and very small sites.

theoh 10y ago

If you know that it's a reference to the phrase "less is more", both the similarity and intended capability is humourously conveyed...