[COFF] [TUHS] On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 7:23 PM Nevin Liber <nliber at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 11:37 AM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>
>> The key is that not all "bloat" is the same (really)—or maybe one
>> person's bloat is another person's preference.
>>
>
> A lot of "bloat" comes because our systems really aren't focused on
> "discoverability".
>
> While I probably have used "pr" in the past, I've totally forgotten, the
> name "pr" doesn't really help me understand what it is for, and it's just
> one of 982 files in my /usr/bin directory alone.  How does one discover it?
>
Chapter 1, Page 15 of Kernigahan and Pike -- "The Unix Programming
Environment"

It's still the best book for learning, regardless if Linux is your
preferred UNIX implementation.


>
> It's like using "sed" instead of "head": sure, if you already know "sed",
> you don't need "head", but for English speaking folks who know "tail" is
> there, it would be (and was in the old days) surprising and frustrating not
> to have "head".
>
Hmmm..  date on 1BSD tape for head is Nov 23, 1977.  It's been around since
the Sixth Edition.
And again - this is my observation - some tools are easier to use, and the
head is easier than a sed script.  One can argue a shell script that exec's
sed for you would have been sufficient to Joy's program.
However, in wnj's defense, he wrote it for sed was not part of the Sixth
Edition.
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