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Re: Spaces in File name Handling
From: |
alupu |
Subject: |
Re: Spaces in File name Handling |
Date: |
Mon, 15 Mar 2004 21:09:53 +0000 |
Hi Paul,
Doug McIlroy's piece; hope you'll enjoy and find hidden meanings.
The UNIX and the Echo
There dwelt in the land of Medford the UNIX, a fair maid whom savants traveled
far to
admire. Dazzled by her purity, all sought to espouse her, one for her grace,
another for
her polished civility, yet another for her agility in performing exacting tasks
seldom
accomplished even in much richer lands. So large of heart and accommodating of
nature
was she that the UNIX adopted all but the most insufferably rich of suitors.
Soon many
offspring grew and prospered and spread to the ends of the earth.
Nature herself smiled and answered to the UNIX more eagerly than to other
mortal beings. Humbler folk, who knew little of more courtly manners, delighted
in her
echo, so precise and crystal clear they scarce believed she could be answered
by the same
rocks and woods that so garbled their own shouts into the wilderness. And the
compliant
UNIX obliged with perfect echoes of whatever she was asked. When one snooty
ee128
student asked the UNIX, Echo nothing, the UNIX obligingly opened her mouth,
echoed
nothing, and closed it again.
Whatever do you mean, another spoiled ee128 youth demanded, opening your
mouth
like that? Henceforth never open your mouth when you are supposed to echo
nothing!
And the UNIX obliged.
But I want a perfect performance, even when you echo nothing, pleaded
the
spoiled student, and no perfect echoes can come from a closed mouth. Not
wishing to
offend either one, the UNIX agreed to say different nothings for the snooty
student and
the spoiled student. She called the sensitive nothing \n.
Yet now when she said \n, she was really not saying nothing so she
had to open
her mouth twice, once to say \n, and once to say nothing, and so she did not
please the
spoiled student who said forthwith, The \n sounds like a perfect nothing to
me, but the
second one ruins it. I want you to take back one of them. So the UJIX, who not
abide
offending, agreed to undo some echoes, and called that \c. Now the spoiled
student
could hear a perfect echo of nothing by asking for \n and \c. together. But
they say
that he died of a surfeit of notion before he ever heard one.
Good luck,
-- Alex