Perl (or Unix vs. MS, actually)

[Derek D. Martin]

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At some point hitherto, bscott at ntisys.com hath spake thusly:
>   Here are two days to do (more or less) the same thing, one on Unix and one 
> on MS-Windows:

You mean MS-DOS.  Windows doesn't have commands...  =8^)

> 	findstr foo myfile.txt
> 	grep foo myfile.txt
> 
>   Without knowing either of the two OSes, which is more self-documenting?  
> Which is more obscure?

I never claimed Unix commands weren't obscure; they ARE.  I prefer
them to Microsoft commands because in general I find they do more and
work better.  However, Unix has man pages.  MS-DOS used to have the
help command, but IIRC last I checked that seems to have
disappeared...  Granted, this is not a useful argument in a Perl/C (or
whatever language) debate; only in Unix vs. MS.

I will also point out that many of the "traditional" Unix command were
named when there was a four-letter limitation on filenames.  Newer
Unix commands are (generally) much more indicative of their function.
There are very few Unix commands whose names are completely
unintelligible, and learning them is much easier than learning the
difference between $^P and $^B.  At least for me, and I suspect most
people.

> > Well, there are certainly people who like to write obscure C as well. It
> > just seems to be part of the Perl culture...  I've seen far less readable
> > Perl than C.
> 
>   I think a large part of Perl's reputation for being line noise is that
> Perl makes heavy use of regular expressions, which *do* look like line noise.  

Perhaps.  But I have a very good grasp of regexp and that's definitely
not what *I* am talking about.

- -- 
Derek Martin               ddm at pizzashack.org    
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