Ted MacNEIL said:
>>However it's reason
>>d'etre is indicated by its name, short for catenate. It's purpose is to take
multiple files and catenate all the input into a single output stream.
>
> And, catenate is intuitive?
To a certain degree it is. Just like it's obvious to you that when you include
two
DD lines in a single DDNAME you get concatenation. Same thing. One of the key
unix
concepts is "everything is a file", including standard input, standard output,
etc.
With that perspective, what should happen when you concatenate two text files
into a
third? And what should happen if you concatenate a text file to standard
output?
The issue isn't whether or not you agree with the alleged benefits everything
behaving like a file. The point is that perspective makes the system more
understandable for lot of people.
> My point was that all OS's have a LIST command.
> I was told that LIST was an invalid description of what the command did. What
> word
would you pick?
I don't know what Gil would pick, but "cat" works fine for me. Unix does have a
"list" command. It is abbreviated to "ls" and it lists the directory contents.
That also seems pretty straight forward to me. And, although my position on MVS
v.
Unix is _not_ that unix is better, I still have to say that there are *plenty*
of
utilities, panels, programs, subsystems, whatever, in an MVS environment that
have
names that give *no* clue as to what they do.
> I saw UNIX before I saw TSO (not before I saw JCL)!
> What's with these strange names?
> That has been my complaint since 1976!
>
> And, what kind of word is catenate?
> Concatenate is a valid english word!
>
I learned it as "concatenate" myself, but I did find "catenate" in several
on-line
dictionaries. They are synonymous.
It seems that familiarity and an easy learning curve are overly valued.
Unfamiliar
things don't always make sense at first, and so they are commonly avoided. If
the
learning curve is steep, then that will likely be avoided, too. The question
is,
does a familiar easily learned program *always* mean it's better?
Was it worth it to you folks to learn your native languages? Human languages
differ
dramatically from each other, and are very complex. I still rather like using
them
to communicate with other humans. We have a bazillion people out there (give or
take several scads) who are familiar with GUI interfaces, and think those
programs
that have them are intuitive mostly because of familiarity. Menus can be very
useful, but sometimes they can become a stifling hindrance - a real maze of
options,
dialogs, and windows. (How do you shut down your Windows computer? Click on the
[START] button.) (How many people think that PhotoShop's menus and dialogs are
"intuitive" to learn?) Computers are powerful and complex enough to warrant
learning
a more complex and powerful "language" if you want to do real work.
So "intuitive" seems to me rather like a moving target depending on the user
and
the goals. Plus, it just isn't the most compelling feature to me. One old joke
in
unixland is "You *still use* vi ??" Response:"No, I *learned* vi." I have no
intention of giving up using vi, because it is powerful. The effort to learn
it has
paid off and I no longer think about the keystrokes and commands. (Except when I
accidentally use ISPF editor commands :-) )The fact that it wasn't intuitive
didn't inhibit me because I saw an experienced
user do some powerful stuff with it and I expected a benefit from sticking to
it.
So, I prefer the flexibility of the unix command line. I prefer the clearly
superior logging and job control of MVS. I prefer the price of entry-level unix
systems. I prefer the outstanding mainframe throughput and reliability. I'm
sure I
could come up with better examples. If we're going to compare unix and MVS,
though,
these are the kinds of features I think are more important. And let's be honest
with
ourselves. Who else besides a mainframer and a unix guy would ever actually
(seriously) assert that JCL, shell, TSO, vi... are "intuitive"?
Wade Curry
AT&T Services, Inc.
Sr. Implementation Mgr.
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