Xref: utzoo comp.os.misc:325 comp.unix.wizards:5579
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!zeus!bobr
From: bobr@zeus.TEK.COM (Robert Reed)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: How much hair? (was "Command interfaces")
Message-ID: <2805@zeus.TEK.COM>
Date: 10 Dec 87 00:06:50 GMT
References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <6840002@hpcllmv.HP.COM> <9555@mimsy.UUCP> <5565@oberon.USC.EDU> <9679@mimsy.UUCP> <22244@cca.CCA.COM>
Reply-To: bobr@zeus.UUCP (Robert Reed)
Organization: CAE Systems Division, Tektronix Inc., Beaverton OR
Lines: 32

In article <22244@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:

    'seems to desired only rarely' is a red flag.  Within a particular language
    one very tends to do that which can be done easily within the language.
    For example, FORTRAN has no natural mechanism for recursion.  One can do
    recursion in FORTRAN, albeit painfully.  Is it any surprise that FORTRAN
    programmers rarely find a need for recursion?  The same holds true of
    command languages as well -- if a particular approach cannot be
    implemented readily in a command language, then it won't be used.

It seems that you've never tried writing a quicksort or any tree traversal
methods in FORTRAN.  I've done both, and can attest to the inaccuracy of
your statement: 

    Is it any surprise that FORTRAN programmers rarely find a need for
    recursion? 

It has been my experience that certain programmers will be willing to fight
extreme levels of hair to accomplish a given task.  They may not like it,
but given the available tools and the requirements of their task, what are
they to do?  

You also seem to be confusing goals with methods.  The Primos and "sh"
methods are alternatives for doing the pairwise matching of files from two
directories.  The methods chosen for accomplishing the task will vary with
the facilities available (e.g. use an insertion sort rather than a
quicksort), but that doesn't discount the task.  In my own experience,
pairwise matching of filenames is an occasional but a rare requirement,
regardless of the command processor I happen to be using.

-- 
Robert Reed, Tektronix CAE Systems Division, bobr@zeus.TEK