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Evan Harris wrote:
Hi Rob

I'm guessing it probably means first 5 characters/digits. I can't be bothered reading the man page for whatever particular random variant of unix this happened to be. That's what you get in an "easier" command line interface.

<SARCASM>
Clunky old OS/400 with its pathetic verbose text interface would force you to type something obvious like ORDERBY(*SIZE) as the parameter determining sort key. Anyone can see the OS/400 approach is clearly inferior - we all prefer cryptic terse statements to longer self-documenting statements...
</SARCASM>

There's some things I could buy into that make unix a nice operating system, but the command interface with its switches, terse and verbose modes, varying arbitrary options and randomly named and inconsistent commands is not one of them. By comparison the OS/400 command syntax and organization is simply light years ahead. The fact that it is logical and you can guess commands and even parameters is proof (to me at least) that the OS/400 command interface was much better designed than unix.

It surprises me that Hans would make such a statement. It's hard to imagine anyone defending a program written in such an obscure and idiomatic way - why should it be OK for an operating system ? Saying it is concise simply makes excuses for its lack of consistency and obfuscation of meaning and intent.

I do understand why someone would prefer the scripting capabilities and environment, but the OS commands themselves ?

Regards
Evan Harris

Perhaps it's just a matter of taste, then. I was introduced to the S/38
in 1981, and continued to work in that arena on and off for the next 22
years. By my informal count, there are currently more than 2100 CL
commands, including about 30 commands for copying alone. Some commands
are specific to certain object types, others take the object type as a
parameter. Some things you DLT (123), others you RMV (126).

Sure, there is that 3 character verb convention that's universal to CL
commands. Except for commands like MD, ERASE, EXPORT, and ROLLBACK. All
of that has to be learned one way or the other.

In the Unix environment, I can use the apropos command to search for an
appropriate command to use, then use the man command to read the manual
page for it. Unlike i5/os, most commands output to stdin, and so can be
piped into other commands. (For example, to count the number of CL
commands, I piped the output of grep into wc.) Sure, the names can be
cryptic. But names like "grep" are part of the Unix programmers'
vocabulary. Likewise, all of this has to be learned too, one way or the
other.

Clearly, these are two very different systems, with very different
philosophies, each with its own rich history.

(BTW, what's the CL command equivalent to grep?)

Cheers! Hans


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