Aucbvax.4484
fa.unix-wizards
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards
Fri Oct 16 00:03:47 1981
'^' as alternate pipe symbol
>From decvax!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Thu Oct 15 23:45:29 1981
One very good reason NOT to delete the alternate pipe symbol '^'
from the Bourne shell is that many people like it and use it, because
it is "lowercase" on many keyboards while '|' usually is shifted.
If I was designing the language from scratch, I would not put too
much weight on this -- there are only so many lowercase symbols,
and you have to use uppercase sometimes -- but de-implementing a
feature that is really in use is another matter.
If it had been deleted at the abandonment of the ASR33, ok. Even
deleting it at Bourne-shell time might have been ok. Too late now,
at least without a compelling reason.
Henry Spencer
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