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From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Democracy in Action (for K keys: more pattern matching flames)
Message-ID: <2062@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27-Dec-86 02:29:45 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.2062
Posted: Sat Dec 27 02:29:45 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Dec-86 07:35:26 EST
References: <1108@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <1696@vax135.UUCP> <1966@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <1702@vax135.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
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In article <1702@vax135.UUCP> cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes:
>In article <1966@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) writes:
>>In article <1696@vax135.UUCP> cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes:
>Marvelous yourself.  Bourne shell and ksh don't allow it.  Invalidate
>**MY** vote, will you?!  Sorry for aggravating all you csh types for
>whom I failed to realize this is no problem.

You're quite right - bourne shell (my ksh is old and ailing, so wasn't
tested :-) works as you describe. Worse yet, csh is bright enough to
glob ">*.c" correctly, even without the space. Apologies to all.

>>The thing that annoys me most about all this is that much of the
>>discussion - including mine - is based on assumptions that are correct
>>for a 9600 baud or slower terminal tied to a serial line, but wrong
>>for the Amiga.
>
>Care to clarify?  Sounds like you're saying (excuse my presumption here)
>that the desirability of filename expansion has something to do with the
>speed of the channel from CPU to screen?  I don't get it.

Sure. I've been bouncing some ideas for a new shell around (it'll do
the filename expansion - but only so the user can control it! I'll
still have my per-argument globbing), and will post the thoughts on it
when I have time (1988?).

The idea is that globbing is a great thing, in that it saves lots of
typing. But we've now got LOTS of bandwidth, so we can do better. For
instance, I type an argument, possibly incomplete, possible with
patterns in it. Not sure what to do next, so I hit the HELP key (for
example only - other keys may apply here!). The shell then pattern
matches what I've typed against the correct universe to generate a
list of names. It opens a requestor with all the names displayed, plus
an "OK" gadget. I select the files I want with the mouse (or via other
technics; something like the Dpaint II stencil requester comes to
mind...), then hit OK. The shell subs in all my selections, and we go
on to the next argument.

Likewise, the history mechanism could be run through the shell (I've
actually seen a demo of this!).

In summary, it's not the question of pattern matching, or filename
expansion, or whatever. It's the design philosophy of the shell.
[Not to insult CBM/Amiga, but the Workbench is *NOT* a shell. It's
something else again....]