5 ms·
My favorite: "dd" the "copy and convert" command, but "cc" was already taken by the C compiler.
by excitom 8y ago
My favorite: "dd" the "copy and convert" command, but "cc" was already taken by the C compiler.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoLater backronymed to "disk destroyer", of course.
- VSpike 8y agoEver since somebody told me the joke, I can't help thinking of it as "disk destroyer". It's a much more appropriate name.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- planteen 8y agoYep learned my lesson once on a malformed dd command and never again have I made a mistake.
- jacksmith21006 8y agoSame. Personal use luckily. Years ago and why never did it again personal or professional.
- cel1ne 8y agoReminds me of “rm -Rf” meaning “read mail really fast” ;)
- trampi 8y agoHah, a BOFH reference :-)
- cesarb 8y agoI thought it came from JCL's DD (Data Definition) statement. Even the parameter syntax is somewhat reminiscent of JCL's DD, while being completely alien to normal Unix commands.
- ori_b 8y agoIt is. It was making fun of the IBM command.
- paulie_a 8y agoWhich is funny on a different note because ibm had the deskstar hard drives better known as the deathstar drive
- 0xcde4c3db 8y agoI'm pretty sure that was coined specifically in reference to the Deskstar 75GXP series, not Deskstar drives in general. The Deskstar brand name is actually still used by HGST for its NAS drives, which seem to be reasonably well-regarded for their intended applications.
- skissane 8y agoThe dd-style syntax isn't actually that bad. of=X if=Y is possibly easier to remember than -o X -i Y, while still being less typing that --output X --input Y. JCL itself has a lot of warts, no denying that. But the basic idea behind the DD statement is interesting. In Unix, file descriptors are just numbers; whereas, in classic MVS, instead of numeric file descriptors the API uses 1-8 character names (DDNAMEs). While in principle a Unix program can inherit any number of file descriptors, in practice very few programs inherit any more than 0-2, because remembering numbers has poor usability. In classic MVS, it is not uncommon for a program to inherit more than 3 file descriptors, because they are assigned names not numbers. ("File descriptors" and "inherit" are not quite the right terms, but trying to use Unix-like language to make it comprehensible to people.) (And I say classic MVS, because contemporary z/OS is actually a conforming Unix implementation so it supports numeric file descriptors in the Unix API, as well as alphanumeric DDNAMEs in the classic MVS API.)
- evacchi 8y agoMy favorite, related, piece of trivia about JCL is the IEFBR14 program: the no-op program that took a few attempts to get it right :-) [1]. Its entire purpose was motivated by JCL not having primary commands to do file management, which is only allowed as a "side effect" of executing a program [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEFBR14#Implementation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEFBR14#Implementation
- jedberg 8y agoI always thought it was "data dump".
- twic 8y agoI thought it was "data director".
- implements 8y agoAhh. I had it as "Device Direct (Copy)" for some reason.
- Coding_Cat 8y agoI, for some reason, have it as 'disk duplicate' in my mind.
- digikata 8y agoI've always thought of it as "data dump"