3 ms·
On another hand, imagine if the original computers on which unix commands were designed weren't restricted to 80 characters terminals with a few kilobytes of me
by bsaul 7y ago
On another hand, imagine if the original computers on which unix commands were designed weren't restricted to 80 characters terminals with a few kilobytes of memory and almost no storage nor CPU. I'm pretty sure the author would have favored much more expressive commands.
I think design of those command lines were done first and foremost because the underlying system constraints were huge. Now that we have tabs autocomplete on shell and IDEs, the length of a command pretty much doesn't have any kind of importance.
- kmdupree 7y agoamen. well, I'll walk that back just a touch: I can see someone plausibly arguing that it may take longer to read longer commands. In that case, I'd argue maybe we need multiple views of the same source: one view for novices and one for experts.
- bsaul 7y agoThe first time i encountered really long names (on purpose, as opposed to java-gone-wild frameworks) was with objective-c. It shocked me at first, but since the parameters are spread along the method call, just like in a regular sentence, it really didn't matter, and actually made the code really nice to read. This style is nowaday pretty common with named parameters in function calls.
- michaelmrose 7y agoFor interactive use I don't want to rely on autocomplete to enter 20 character commands instead of 5 characters.
- teddyh 7y ago> I'm pretty sure the author would have favored much more expressive commands. The very first compiled computer language was designed to be very expressive and able to be read almost as English, and be simple to read and understand. Would this be what you wanted? Would you change your mind when I tell you its name is COBOL?
- zengargoyle 7y agoOn another hand, imagine the original computers on which unix commands were designed for weren't restricted to 300 baud teletype terminals. Are you really willing to wait 3x or 4x the time to read something as the print head goes WHACK WHACK WHACK across the page. Going through print ribbons like crazy? Wasting paper?