> > >> FreeBSD and Dragonfly BSD have this option in tr. So, this actually > > >> improves portability. > > > > It's just spreading the disease. portable means it works everywhere. > > Increasing the number of people who can write nonportable code is not > > the same as increasing portability. > > How many others have to adopt it before it's considered portable, then?
It is portable when all of them have it. Since you can't fix the past, we must be very conservative in our approach. > Would you feel the same way if this were the -l option on ls, GNU had > it, and none of the BSD descendants did? Uhm, that's a pretty weak argument. > It's possible, as mentioned elsewhere, that simply making tr be > unbuffered by default is the better move, and ignore -u for > compatibility with FreeBSD and Dragonfly BSD.
