3 ms·

Letters hold no meaning. The ls, mv, cp, rm commands are self-explanatory with only one extra letter.

• dmitriid 5y ago
  > commands are self-explanatory with only one extra letter. They really aren't :) If you came across them outside of the context in which you learned them, they mean nothing. Once you've learned them, only then do you know that they are contractions/abbreviations: ls is list, mv is move, cp is copy etc.
  • Flankk 5y ago
    Obviously a word without vowels is an abbreviation of sorts. The only context I had learning the shell was from using DOS. The equivalent would be DIR, MOVE, COPY, DEL. DOS sucked but I did enjoy playing Lemmings.
    • dmitriid 5y ago
      When I moved to Linux from Windows I couldn't understand why the operations weren't actual words you could deduce and remember :) mv instead of move? why?! Now I have them internalised, so it's fine.
      • TheMonarchist 5y ago
        Unix was created on a PDP-7. Two letters was generous considering that they had to use an electromechanical terminal. They also had only 4K words of store in the beginning so they wouldn't run out of meaningful shorthands.
• tmp538394722 5y ago
  “mv” - it stands for renaMe(v)
  • poopypoopington 5y ago
    Lol, I think it stands for "move" because you can do something like "mv foo bar/foo", but you can also use it to rename with mv foo bar.
    • silisili 5y ago
      This one always bothered me a little, pedantically. mv should, well, physically move things. It does when you cross partition or disk boundaries, of course. But doesn't when using it like a rename. I get the point, it just feels strange.
      • _jstreet 5y ago
        The logic alternative would be 'rename', so... 'rn'? The issue there is that's dangerously close to 'rm'! I'll stick to 'mv' thanks.
  • jaclaz 5y ago
    Well "dd" stands for copy & convert ...
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      "dataset definition" https://www.tutorialspoint.com/jcl/jcl_dd_statement.htm https://www.tutorialspoint.com/jcl/jcl_dd_statement.htm