xargs / FS-maintenance question

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Scott Elcomb wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-10-01 at 17:27, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 01, 2004 at 04:14:28PM -0400, Fraser Campbell wrote:
>>> On Friday 01 October 2004 15:30, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> [...]
>> echo is a good thing, lets you see if the result looks sane before
>> really doing it.
>
> At the risk of facing "the wrath of the community" [ :) ] echo is one of
> my absolute favorite shell cmds - a lesson learned in Windows/DOS.

<comment wrath_level="low">

     In Unix-type OSs echo is often not the best command to use, as its
     behaviour varies from one implementation to another, and can even
     vary depending on the contents of your PATH, or the options your
     shell has set, or the way it was compiled.

     It is better to use printf when you are not absolutely certain of
     the contents of the arguments. But the principle of showing the
     results before executing them for real is a very good one.

</comment>

> As per the "Basics of the UNIX Philosophy - Seventeen Steps to
> Happiness" (as described in by LinuxFormat), the echo command provides a
> solution to a couple of "the rules" :
>
> - Rule of Clarity - Clarity is better than cleverness.
>
> - Rule of Simplicity - Design for simplicity; add complexity only where
> necessary.
>
> - Rule of Robustness - Robustness is the the child of Transparency &
> Simplicity.

      Demonstrably false (though probably true with a little
      qualification).

> - Rule of Silence - When a program has nothing surprising to say, it
> should say nothing.

      Is the result of 2 + 2 surprising? I don't think so. So what my
      calculator supposed to do?

> - Rule of Economy - Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in
> preference to machine time.

      On the other hand, especially if it's an interactive program, the
      time wasted by hundreds or thousands of users could cost far more
      than the programmer's time.

> There are some others, but I'm fairly certain that covers the basics. :)

     - Rule of Generalization: All such generalizations are false.

-- 
 	Chris F.A. Johnson                      http://cfaj.freeshell.org
 	=================================================================
                 Everything in moderation -- including moderation
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