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>My video of my kid's first at-bat, in a file I named a.out, got mysteriously clobbered when I took my first programming class. This is a failure to understand

>My video of my kid's first at-bat, in a file I named a.out, got mysteriously clobbered when I took my first programming class. This is a failure to understand GCC's default behavior, not a fundamental flaw with your operating system. The "core" thing is a little more understandable, but it can all be remedied by choosing reasonable filenames with accurate file extensions. "aux.c" isn't that unreasonable, and if I'm reading it right, he could've called it "aux.foo" and it still would've been broken.

oblio 9y ago
> This is a failure to understand [Program X]'s default behavior, not a fundamental flaw with your operating system. Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault". As a Linux user for many years, that doesn't excuse such boneheaded errors. By default no application should clobber existing files, unless asked to. Avoid data loss and all that. Heck, I remember back when: tar myfile.txt myarchive.tar would result in myfile.txt being truncated to 0 bytes (therefore deleting its contents) and a snarky message that myarchive.tar can't be archived because it can't be found. For those that don't remember how tar works, the arguments are reversed compared to, say, cp. At least I think they've fixed it, newer tar version says something like "Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive". The Unix ecosystem, dragged kicking and screaming towards user-friendliness since 1970.
- jovial_cavalier 9y ago
  >Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault". Well, if the user had read the manual before using GCC, it wouldn't have happened. Regardless, I don't blame them or look down my nose at them. It's bad design. If it's anyone's fault, it's GCC's. But it's certainly not a problem with Unix. This makes it incomparable to the system-level issue of having global filenames like DOS did, apparently.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Well, as far as modern design goes, I doubt many people argue that Unix was better designed than DOS. DOS was a single user, single tasking OS meant for very limited hardware. While Unix was kind of Ok, when coupled with its common userland utilities, the whole often felt like a cactus. Possibly useful, if you don't mind the scars :D
  - mort96 9y ago
    I'm a professional software developer (well, "professional"; I have a part time programmming job next to studies), where I program in C++, compiling with GCC. I have never read GCC's manual. Expecting newcomers to read the 18 thousand lines of man page before trying to make a program isn't reasonable. Of course, the man page is a great resource for looking things up, but I can't imagine many people sit down with GCC's man page and actually read it through.
- Sean1708 9y ago
  > Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault" Except that example could also happen on Windows.
- _jal 9y ago
  Looks like it is time for this again... > Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault" Ah, yes, the age-old complaint that a car driver should be able to run a forklift with no practice. I don't think Unixen should strive for 'user friendliness'. Hacking in "Do you really want to" dialogs would (a) be contrary to all expectations developed over a long time, (b) break a lot of existing software, (b) annoy the bloody hell out of everyone, and (d) not solve anything, because those dialogs don't prevent mistakes. Not all systems need to converge, and Unix has been a professional toolchain since the beginning. You're expected to know something about it, just like you don't let kids run plasma cutters.
  - boomlinde 9y ago
    "My video of my kid's first at-bat, on a DVD in front of my plasma cutter, got mysteriously clobbered when I turned the cutter on."
- kps 9y ago
  > For those that don't remember how tar works, the arguments are reversed compared to, say, cp. Tar doesn't have positional file arguments; you use the 'f' flag to specify an archive file. You might be thinking of zip or some similar archiver in the DOS heritage.
  - oblio 9y ago
    My bad, I was actually talking about a very common tar idiom which is almost an automatism for me: tar cvf/czvf/cjvf archive files (or -cvf/-czvf/-cjvf). I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually using tar by going: tar -c files -f archive Online tutorials seem to also use my form: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-examples/ http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-example... Either way, bad form, I'm glad they fixed it :)

oblio 9y ago

> This is a failure to understand [Program X]'s default behavior, not a fundamental flaw with your operating system. Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault". As a Linux user for many years, that doesn't excuse such boneheaded errors. By default no application should clobber existing files, unless asked to. Avoid data loss and all that. Heck, I remember back when: tar myfile.txt myarchive.tar would result in myfile.txt being truncated to 0 bytes (therefore deleting its contents) and a snarky message that myarchive.tar can't be archived because it can't be found. For those that don't remember how tar works, the arguments are reversed compared to, say, cp. At least I think they've fixed it, newer tar version says something like "Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive". The Unix ecosystem, dragged kicking and screaming towards user-friendliness since 1970.

jovial_cavalier 9y ago
>Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault". Well, if the user had read the manual before using GCC, it wouldn't have happened. Regardless, I don't blame them or look down my nose at them. It's bad design. If it's anyone's fault, it's GCC's. But it's certainly not a problem with Unix. This makes it incomparable to the system-level issue of having global filenames like DOS did, apparently.
- oblio 9y ago
  Well, as far as modern design goes, I doubt many people argue that Unix was better designed than DOS. DOS was a single user, single tasking OS meant for very limited hardware. While Unix was kind of Ok, when coupled with its common userland utilities, the whole often felt like a cactus. Possibly useful, if you don't mind the scars :D
- mort96 9y ago
  I'm a professional software developer (well, "professional"; I have a part time programmming job next to studies), where I program in C++, compiling with GCC. I have never read GCC's manual. Expecting newcomers to read the 18 thousand lines of man page before trying to make a program isn't reasonable. Of course, the man page is a great resource for looking things up, but I can't imagine many people sit down with GCC's man page and actually read it through.
Sean1708 9y ago
> Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault" Except that example could also happen on Windows.
_jal 9y ago
Looks like it is time for this again... > Ah, yes, the age old Unix trope of, "it's not the system, it's the user's fault" Ah, yes, the age-old complaint that a car driver should be able to run a forklift with no practice. I don't think Unixen should strive for 'user friendliness'. Hacking in "Do you really want to" dialogs would (a) be contrary to all expectations developed over a long time, (b) break a lot of existing software, (b) annoy the bloody hell out of everyone, and (d) not solve anything, because those dialogs don't prevent mistakes. Not all systems need to converge, and Unix has been a professional toolchain since the beginning. You're expected to know something about it, just like you don't let kids run plasma cutters.
- boomlinde 9y ago
  "My video of my kid's first at-bat, on a DVD in front of my plasma cutter, got mysteriously clobbered when I turned the cutter on."
kps 9y ago
> For those that don't remember how tar works, the arguments are reversed compared to, say, cp. Tar doesn't have positional file arguments; you use the 'f' flag to specify an archive file. You might be thinking of zip or some similar archiver in the DOS heritage.
- oblio 9y ago
  My bad, I was actually talking about a very common tar idiom which is almost an automatism for me: tar cvf/czvf/cjvf archive files (or -cvf/-czvf/-cjvf). I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually using tar by going: tar -c files -f archive Online tutorials seem to also use my form: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-examples/ http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-example... Either way, bad form, I'm glad they fixed it :)