Asri-unix.382
net.unix-wizards
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!pur-ee!malcolm@Berkeley
Wed Dec 30 23:31:51 1981
Flame about shell metacharacter expansion
I was hoping the discussion about the shell passing the unexpanded command
line to the program would die a natural death but the comments by
yale-comix!bj were the last straw for me.  I hate to dignify the idea but
many of the bad points have not been mentioned.

As a user:
       One of the beauties of UNIX is its clean architecture.  For example
       I can use a program that writes output, irregardless of the my stty
       settings.  Each module of UNIX (file system, process control, command
       interpreter, etc.) does one thing and does it well.  Not only does
       it make it easier to do things, it is much easier to learn.  Letting
       a program see the unexpanded command line is like passing the buck.
       To put this arguement on a simpler level...The last thing that I want
       is for the command interpreter to expand the magic characters and
       then some nincompoop (sp?) program to decide that the shell did
       it all wrong and do just the opposite.

As a programmer:
       I have seen four different shells since I started playing with
       UNIX (Maschey(v6), Bourne (v7), Joy(Berkeley), and a novice
       shell).  I really don't want to try to properly handle
       multiple shells and their various syntax.  I hate to even think
       about what I would have to do with the new "shells in an editor"
       (EMACS?).

I guess the moral of the story is let the command interpreter (shell)
do its job.  If you don't like it use a different shell.

                                               Malcolm Slaney
                                               ihuxi!pur-ee!malcolm
                                               ucbvax!pur-ee!malcolm
                                               pur-ee!malcolm@Berkeley

P.S.  I know people will argue that the no expand feature is needed
to prevent things like "rm *."  Is it really such a good idea to mess
up all the beauty of UNIX when so many better solutions exist.  For the
above I suggest
       if (user_is_a_munchkin && number_of_files_to_delete > 2){
               printf("Are you sure??????? ");
       and so on.....

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