On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 10:14:36PM -0700, Mischa Spiegelmock wrote:
> And to think some people actually have the nerve to claim UNIX-style  
> operating systems are not user-friendly!
> Here we are, in the year two thousand and six of our Lord, and UNIX  
> commands still somehow manage to be as hateful as ever.
> Anyway, the subject of my hate tonight is the command to list  
> processes, also known as "ps." (Which may I point out is a horribly  
> unintuitive name in itself, but I digress).
> 
> I'm sitting there trying to remember how to display output in "tree"  
> mode.
> The ps usage tells me, and I quote: "f    ASCII art forest"
> It's a forest because it has trees. Get it?

Actually, yes, just as per the definition of "tree" and "forest" in
graph theory; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_%28graph_theory%29

> Great UNIX, just great.

Well, strictly speaking, the output of "ps f" is, indeed, not
necessarily a tree - unless you're really listing either a single tree
or the whole thing right down from "init".  But, yeah, I can see how the
use of "forest" here might seem either a bit too obscure or a bit too
poetic for some tastes :)

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
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