On: The Collapse of the Unix Philosophy

[richardwhiuk]

search?

[__jal → richardwhiuk]

So how do you know what type of search you're doing? There were existing text matching algorithms at the time.

"No, I mean the kind of car that is really big, that you drive on ice rinks to smooth out the ice."

[flukus → richardwhiuk]

Search what? File names? File contents? Users? Machines?

[TeMPOraL → flukus]

You could say the same about "mv". Move what? Files? File names? File parts? Users? Machines? Screens?

There's always some default subject implied for every command name. For "find" it is files, for "search" it could have been text.

[flukus → TeMPOraL]

> You could say the same about "mv". Move what? Files? File names? File parts? Users? Machines? Screens?

Files, the base type that's consistent across all the basic commands (AFAIK).

[int_19h → flukus]

It depends on what you mean by "basic command". There are plenty which take arguments that aren't files - chown, chgrp and su, for example.