Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!deimos!uxc!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!mcvax!enea!dkuug!ncrsecp!jr
From: jr@ncrsecp.Copenhagen.NCR.dk (Jakob Riis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: fixing rm * (was: Worm/Passwords)
Keywords: Make new commands, leave the shell as it is
Message-ID: <1480@ncrsecp.Copenhagen.NCR.dk>
Date: 29 Nov 88 13:31:19 GMT
References: <1232@atari.UUCP> <564@comdesign.CDI.COM> <1670@ski.cs.vu.nl> <711@quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: jr@ncrsecp.Copenhagen.NCR.dk (Jakob Riis)
Organization: NCR Systems Engineering Copenhagen
Lines: 32

In article <711@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>In article <1670@ski.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J A Biep Durieux) writes:
>>At the very least, 'rm * .o' should refuse to do anything when the file '.o'
>>doesn't exist.
>
>I have posted a "del" command to comp.sources.unix which does this.

EXACTLY !!

Make new commands, don't mess around with the old ones.

I agree that users need to be protected: Give them safer commands, Menu shells
or PullDown help screens, nurse them good, but don't take away the alertness
to the real thing - Unix is fast and dangerous, real progreammers reread their
"rm" statements twice !!
Don't let users expect that "rm -r *" will help them trim their filesystem
by asking them to confirm each file. Teach a user that, and watch his face
running on another system one day !!
B.T.W:
Think of the portability - 100.000+ shell scripts that needs to be rewritten.
We have enough trouble with differences between BSD and V, Csh, Bsh, Ksh etc.
as it is.

(Just my 2 cents opinion)

Jakob Riis				 ___________________________________
NCR Systems Engineering Copenhagen      |                                   |
                                        | " If Batman is so damned clever,  |
jr@ncrsecp.Copenhagen.NCR.com           | why is he wearing his undershorts |
	or                              | outside his trousers ? "          |
....mcvax!enea!dkuug!ncrsecp!jr         |              -Danish graffitti    |
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