4 ms·

What about `less` is `more`!?

LeoPanthera 6y ago
"more" can't scroll upwards. "less" is a clone of more that can - hence the name. In most unixes, more is now an alias to less, resulting in the literal fact that "less is more".
- rabidrat 6y ago
  So now in order to transmit the mnemonic you have to communicate the lineage of the command. "more" begat "less" begat "zless"... Punny names stop being funny after a few years. How about a general principle of not using punny names in the first place?
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    I think it's important to remember that unix-based operating systems are under your control. You can create aliases under any name you like, if you'd prefer a different name.
    - reificator 6y ago
      > unix-based operating systems are under your control Except when they're not.
      - boogies 6y ago
        True, but if you can run any command, you can probably run the alias command. It's just more convenient if you can run it from a .bashrc or similar.
  - acheron 6y ago
    But it also doesn't matter. I still think of "nano" as "like pico", but I would bet at this point fewer than 10% of the people using nano today ever used pico or maybe ever heard of it. They just know the editor is named "nano" for whatever reason. "elm" (ELectronic Mail) begat "pine" begat "pico" (PIne COmposer) begat "nano".
  - dTal 6y ago
    This isn't a problem unique to software. Half the stuff in the sciences is not named something useful and descriptive, but rather after whoever discovered it second. Naming things is hard. "One of the miseries of life is that everybody names things a little bit wrong, and so it makes everything a little harder to understand in the world than it would be if it were named differently." --Richard Feynman
- jnxx 6y ago
  just as lovely as cat and tac
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
There's also a most(1) running around, though I couldn't tell you how it's different.
- boogies 6y ago
  "Unlike other well-known paging programs most supports multiple windows and can scroll left and right. Why settle for less?" http://www.jedsoft.org/most/ http://www.jedsoft.org/most/ It also has built in syntax highlighting. But it's not usable for me, as it doesn't have vi-like keybindings. My ideal pager would be less with syntax highlighting, which should be possible because git shows logs, etc in color in less when they're larger than a screen full… checks less manpage It is! You just need to use -r or -R and make sure commands you pipe into it don't disable color when they detect a pipe (eg. use ls --color, not ls --color=auto). Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole!

"more" can't scroll upwards. "less" is a clone of more that can - hence the name. In most unixes, more is now an alias to less, resulting in the literal fact that "less is more".

rabidrat 6y ago
So now in order to transmit the mnemonic you have to communicate the lineage of the command. "more" begat "less" begat "zless"... Punny names stop being funny after a few years. How about a general principle of not using punny names in the first place?
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  I think it's important to remember that unix-based operating systems are under your control. You can create aliases under any name you like, if you'd prefer a different name.
  - reificator 6y ago
    > unix-based operating systems are under your control Except when they're not.
    - boogies 6y ago
      True, but if you can run any command, you can probably run the alias command. It's just more convenient if you can run it from a .bashrc or similar.
- acheron 6y ago
  But it also doesn't matter. I still think of "nano" as "like pico", but I would bet at this point fewer than 10% of the people using nano today ever used pico or maybe ever heard of it. They just know the editor is named "nano" for whatever reason. "elm" (ELectronic Mail) begat "pine" begat "pico" (PIne COmposer) begat "nano".
- dTal 6y ago
  This isn't a problem unique to software. Half the stuff in the sciences is not named something useful and descriptive, but rather after whoever discovered it second. Naming things is hard. "One of the miseries of life is that everybody names things a little bit wrong, and so it makes everything a little harder to understand in the world than it would be if it were named differently." --Richard Feynman
jnxx 6y ago
just as lovely as cat and tac

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

There's also a most(1) running around, though I couldn't tell you how it's different.

boogies 6y ago
"Unlike other well-known paging programs most supports multiple windows and can scroll left and right. Why settle for less?" http://www.jedsoft.org/most/ http://www.jedsoft.org/most/ It also has built in syntax highlighting. But it's not usable for me, as it doesn't have vi-like keybindings. My ideal pager would be less with syntax highlighting, which should be possible because git shows logs, etc in color in less when they're larger than a screen full… checks less manpage It is! You just need to use -r or -R and make sure commands you pipe into it don't disable color when they detect a pipe (eg. use ls --color, not ls --color=auto). Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole!