Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ll-xn!adelie!minya!jc From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: more rm insanity Message-ID: <431@minya.UUCP> Date: 12 Dec 87 14:28:41 GMT References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <6840002@hpcllmv.HP.COM> <9555@mimsy.UUCP> <1901@celtics.UUCP> Organization: home Lines: 42 Summary: If we'd follow Unix design, it would work... > Explain to a user, please, why the user can get a list of filenames beginning > with "cel" by typing > ls cel* > ...but in order to get a list of adjacent network nodes beginning with "cel", > using the hypothetical "netlist" command, the user must type > netlist cel\* > ...makes no sense to me. Nor to me. Ane there are "network" Unix systems where it works. For example, with the Newcastle Connection, you can find out about network nodes at the same level as your system by typing: ls /../* Other wildcard expansions work similarly, because "/../" is implemented as a normal directory. (It is actually a special file, of course, within which is hidden the network.) On a more general note, part of the problem is the widespread violation of the object-oriented design of Unix. Objects are, of course, called "files", and operators are called "processes". If you have a set of objects, you make them a set by linking them into a directory. You can then use various operators (such as ls or find or wildcard expansion) to extract subsets. There is no reason that this can't be used for network nodes, as it can be used for programs, directories, source files, object files, disk drives, or anything else whose name can be entered in a directory. Instead, most network implementations are kludges that violate this useful design, usually by introducing some sort of special syntax for network nodes (host:file, host!user, something@host, etc.) which the standard Unix library programs don't understand, and which doesn't follow the model of a tree of directories. Then we go through the process of "reinventing the wheel", trying all sorts of ways to use a bad design, when we already had one that works well. It's really another case of Henry Spencer's .signature: Those who don't understand Unix are re-inventing it, poorly. Eventually, people might realize that networked systems, like multi-disk file systems, should simply be combined in the same heirarchy that looks the same from any vantage point. Anything else (like Sun's NFS) is simply an interim kludge that interferes with effective applications of simple tools. -- John Chambers <{adelie,ima,maynard,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)