4 ms·

I really wish people would mostly stop doing this type of utterly and completely necessary "correction." It really misses the point, and exemplifies nearly the

• cuu508 5y ago
  This is pointing out you can simplify the drill+pliers+plunger+screwdriver contraption to just screwdriver.
• DarylZero 5y ago
  > using a metric-labeled screwdriver on an imperial-measured screw that still gets the job done exactly as needed This is super ignorant. You risk stripping the screw and getting yourself into a frustrating screw extraction job. Just because you lived, doesn't mean it was safe.
  • jrm4 5y ago
    Sure, let's beat up this metaphor. I would say the ignorant one of us is the one who isn't taking into account the nature of the job being done? What makes you think that a) my task is life or death and also b) I'm not equipped to figure out how dangerous it is? To pull out the camera. I'd like to spread Unix tools to everyone, or at least "more people than use them now." I understand though, for a lot of people, they'd rather gatekeep.
    • DarylZero 5y ago
      It doesn't matter whether it's life or death. If you end up having to extract that screw it's going to be a big headache. You just shouldn't use an "almost"-fitting screwdriver or wrench. I'm not trying to "gatekeep." I'm not trying to talk about the shell metaphorically. I'm literally talking about screws.
    • carapace 5y ago
      You picked a bad metaphor, eh? > The primary cause of this discrepancy was that one piece of ground software supplied by Lockheed Martin produced results in a United States customary unit, contrary to its Software Interface Specification (SIS), while a second system, supplied by NASA, expected those results to be in SI units, in accordance with the SIS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... It's hardly gatekeeping to try to teach people better ways to do things.
      • jrm4 5y ago
        No, it's a good one. What y'all mistakenly assumed was the idea of "every computer task is a life or death one" instead of considering the idea that there can be different levels of care for different levels of danger. The reason many people in IT can't think outside of this idea is that they are (subconsciously) reluctant to open the gates for others. As a teacher in IT I quite literally deal with this every day.
        • carapace 5y ago
          I really don't think that teaching people better ways to do things is exclusionary. The OP even included the reasons why their version is preferable. You really see that as complaining and gatekeeping? An 'utterly and completely necessary "correction."'?
          • jrm4 5y ago
            The problem is that it's rarely "Oh, I see that your way works. But here's another way that I'm pretty sure is better, and here's why." It's nearly always "WRONG. THIS IS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO IT."
      • philwelch 5y ago
        Comparing the failure of a multi million dollar space probe to a stripped screw head seems like an even worse analogy to me.
  • howdydoo 5y ago
    Slightly off topic, but is this something people worry about in the real world? I have about 9 random screwdrivers, and when I need one I just try them all until one seems to fit. And if it doesn't, I... stop, instead of stripping the screw. I couldn't tell you if a single one of them was metric or imperial
    • DarylZero 5y ago
      There is no such thing as metric or imperial screw heads. There are various ISO/ANSI standards.
    • jrm4 5y ago
      :) That's the other thing about my example, it was just a doofy little thing I made up.
    • BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      I work on small engines. Their carburetors usually are held together with JIS screws, which do look like Phillips. You can tell if someone took it apart with Phillips, though, as the screw is (basically anyways) visibly damaged and the screwdriver doesn't seat as well.
• nicce 5y ago
  It might not miss the point, if the command sample is giving more complicated demonstration than it actually is, almost like doing artificially long command to demonstrate unix-magic, to get more audience. Anti-patterns are bad, because it usually means that sample command might work in this case, but not in other environments or other use-cases. Someone who is seeing these commands first time, has no idea about that. And this post is meant for beginners.
  • jrm4 5y ago
    I don't think it's more complicated. Most of the time I see people doing "corrections" on the so-called proper way to use Unix tools, they're favoring conciseness (sure, whatever) over intuitiveness. I uselessly use "cat" ALL THE TIME, because the Unix pipe metaphor is absolutely intuitively excellent. I know that I'm starting at the beginning with pipe and shoving data through, and I have a good idea about each step.
• bonkabonka 5y ago
  The original example MUST be corrected for the same reason that folks who post naive code snippets adding SQL strings together with user input must be corrected. It is not a matter of taste and it is not a matter of metric versus imperial screwdrivers. Someone will copy this code and it will end up being an attack vector where it will have consequences. I imagine you're rolling your eyes and have flipped the bozo bit but please bear with me. Think of the teachable moment this presents! The author of the original piece goes back and annotates their original answer along the lines of, "you might solve it this way but there are some gotchas with it - let me show you what could go wrong." As an industry we absolutely need to circle back with improvements so that those who come after us can build on a more solid foundation.
  • vorador 5y ago
    Genuinely curious, what's so bad about the original code that it adds an attack vector?
    • bonkabonka 5y ago
      To guard against malicious filenames I use `find ... -print0 | xargs -r0...` since posix disallows null bytes (and forward slashes) in filenames. The `-r` flag on xargs means it doesn't execute its command if find matches nothing. So filenames can contain valid commands delimited with semi-colons that, if not quoted properly, can be unexpectedly run alongside your intended pipeline (say if you're doing the usual and unsafe "for csv in *.csv; do cat $csv; done"). I wish I could've laid my hands on the excellent HN thread from some years back that opened my eyes to this vector, but I'm hopeful someone else will mention it so I can add it to my bash notes file. :P