Moving files

[pll at lanminds.com]

In a message dated: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 16:31:48 EST
Michael O'Donnell said:

>You're right, of course - I did.  And I hope
>nobody took any offense at my request for
>explanations.  FYI, when I asked for y'all to
>explain your one-liners I did it (as much as
>anything else) for the benefit of the silent
>lurkers today and those who might be cruising
>these archives in future.  I like to think the
>GNHLUG list is good for that sort of thing.

I don't think anyone took offense at your request, at least I didn't. 
I actually interpreted it exactly as you meant it, a request for 
explanation for those who might not be able to figure it out at first 
glance.

>But here I am trying to add Perl to the list
>of languages I know and, in some senses, Perl
>pisses me off because it *is* familiar - it's a
>Frankenstein tangle of bleeding chunks ripped
>from various other languages that I'm expert
>in.  It's the same, only different.  With Perl,
>those similarities trick me into thinking that
>I know what's going on when I really don't.
>Maybe I'd have more patience with it if it
>was completely UNfamiliar...

Agreed, which is where I think many get trapped by things like perl's 
grep(). Anyone who's been around UNIX for a while understands how grep
works.  But perl's grep is only similar to the grep command, not identical, 
in fact, it's more powerful.  However, this can lead someone astray 
into thinking they know what's going and getting completely confused 
when it does something unexpected.  Which is what the docs are for.

-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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