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From: jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Next Bugs
Message-ID: 
Date: 25 Sep 89 16:45:05 GMT
References: <2420@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <6247@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: J Greely 
Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science
Lines: 44
In-reply-to: avie@wb1.cs.cmu.edu's message of 24 Sep 89 08:34:29 GMT

In article <6247@pt.cs.cmu.edu> avie@wb1.cs.cmu.edu (Avadis Tevanian) writes:
>In article <2420@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> jst@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Joe Stong) writes:
>>It has an interestingly misleading help message, from which I might
>>conclude that typing "disk -i /dev/rod0a" is a way to bring it up in
>>interactive mode.  Pretty frightening, -i is INITIALIZE, and not
>>interactive.

>Correct, disk -i is initialize.  I don't know why its frightening.

I do!  Mostly because we fell for it when I got the 0.9 release disk.
The problem with "disk" is that it was undocumented under 0.9, and all
you got was the usage message (unchanged for 1.0), which looks like
this:

	usage: /usr/etc/disk [option flags] [action flags] raw-device
	option flags:
	...
	action flags:
	...
		-i		initialize disk
	...
	interactive mode if no action flags specified
	example: /usr/etc/disk -i /dev/rod0a

The key is the last two lines.  "Oh, -i is interactive mode.  That
makes sense".  One, I think it's silly for the example to be
"initialize disk, no questions asked".  It's not something you want to
give a novice system administrator (or a tired one!).  Two, the
presence of the previous line makes it much more likely that someone
will make a mistake.  Three, if there weren't a proper manual page in
1.0 for this dangerous but useful command, I'd be screaming for blood.


		"But *sniff*, you will come
		 back to play with us again,
		 won't you?"
		 			"Of *course* I will!
					 On the second Tuesday
					 of next week."
		"Hooway! Hooway!"
		"Wait!  The *second*
		 Tuesday?"
-=-
J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)