22 May
2001
22 May
'01
2:32 p.m.
On Tue, 22 May 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
Well, not similar. In the case of the rm command, YOU tell the computer
to do that. The other case is the computer assuming you want to do what
might end up being a catastrophic action and then going ahead and doing it
without your intervention (or at least asking you a simple Y or N
question).
If you put a
disk into a drive and the computer can't read it, do you WANT
the computer to go aghead and format it without asking?
Similar to Unix and the ``rm'' command---make one slight mistake and well
... Have backup? Nothing worse than finding the ``rm'' command aliased to
``rm -i''. Yes! Yes! Delete the files! Aaaaaaah! /bin/rm blah blah.
In his interview in ``Programmers at Work,''
he stated he didn't
care for mice at all, as it forces you to relocate your hands from the
keyboard to the mouse, and that most navigation could be done faster
via the keyboard than with a mouse [3]. And his current work he
mentions his dislike of the mouse.
I'd have to agree there. Command line rules. The worst offenders of
mouse overuse are those that will select a file in a window, go to the
"File" pull-down menu, select "Delete", and then click on
"Yes" to
confirm. Why not just hit the DEL key DAMN IT!!!??
[3] In my experience, that's true once you learn
how to navigate a
document via the keyboard. But there are some things I like using
a mouse for though.
Like selecting multiple items, then dragging and dropping them. Well,
it's easier at least. Otherwise, I can do everything faster in a command
line.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org