4 ms·

This isn't a safety note, it's a warning not to use flags that you don't fully understand.

jackewiehose 6y ago
-flags+commands I can say I've never heard of -h/-H and never thought much about symlinks vs. chmod and I never had a problem with it because I've never thought that a symlink can have its own permission (I didn't even know such systems exist). So for me the default of -H is fine.
recursive 6y ago
Why is it not both?
gruez 6y ago
>it's a warning not to use flags that you don't fully understand. and how many people were told to do chown -R from stackoverflow?
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  I suppose people blindly following suggestions on the Internet will eventually learn a hard lesson -- don't. Corollary: Learn to RTFM. Unless you've went out of your way to avoiding installing the documentation (man pages, etc.), all the answers you need (well, most of them) are right there on your own system.
  - loopz 6y ago
    There should be sane defaults though, instead of expecting everyone to have to learn the same thing.
    - greglindahl 6y ago
      Unix is user-friendly. It also has high expectations of its users.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    > Learn to RTFM Fortunately, developers are never put under unreasonable deadlines while being evaluated by how many JIRA tickets they close and instead are always given as much time as they need to ensure that they understand all the nuances of the entire stack all the way down to the subtle behaviors of the operating system.
- bregma 6y ago
  The people who base all their knowledge of how to use computers on what they've gleaned from Stack Overflow need to find a better cargo cult. This one's already full.
pjc50 6y ago
This is basically a warning not to use UNIX. There are a lot of subtleties; you could easily construct a gotcha test which very few users would pass.
quietbritishjim 6y ago
But the article was about a flag that you were not setting because you might not know it existed. The logical conclusion of your argument is to ditch command line tools altogether and use graphical tools; at least then you can exhaustively review every checkbox and dropdown etc. before you click "go". Which is ironic, because from the tone of your comment I suspect you're actually a strong adherent to command line tools.

-flags+commands I can say I've never heard of -h/-H and never thought much about symlinks vs. chmod and I never had a problem with it because I've never thought that a symlink can have its own permission (I didn't even know such systems exist). So for me the default of -H is fine.

recursive 6y ago

Why is it not both?

gruez 6y ago

>it's a warning not to use flags that you don't fully understand. and how many people were told to do chown -R from stackoverflow?

jlgaddis 6y ago
I suppose people blindly following suggestions on the Internet will eventually learn a hard lesson -- don't. Corollary: Learn to RTFM. Unless you've went out of your way to avoiding installing the documentation (man pages, etc.), all the answers you need (well, most of them) are right there on your own system.
- loopz 6y ago
  There should be sane defaults though, instead of expecting everyone to have to learn the same thing.
  - greglindahl 6y ago
    Unix is user-friendly. It also has high expectations of its users.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > Learn to RTFM Fortunately, developers are never put under unreasonable deadlines while being evaluated by how many JIRA tickets they close and instead are always given as much time as they need to ensure that they understand all the nuances of the entire stack all the way down to the subtle behaviors of the operating system.
bregma 6y ago
The people who base all their knowledge of how to use computers on what they've gleaned from Stack Overflow need to find a better cargo cult. This one's already full.

pjc50 6y ago

This is basically a warning not to use UNIX. There are a lot of subtleties; you could easily construct a gotcha test which very few users would pass.

quietbritishjim 6y ago

But the article was about a flag that you were not setting because you might not know it existed. The logical conclusion of your argument is to ditch command line tools altogether and use graphical tools; at least then you can exhaustively review every checkbox and dropdown etc. before you click "go". Which is ironic, because from the tone of your comment I suspect you're actually a strong adherent to command line tools.