Fun_People Archive
9 Oct
Who 's on first'

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed,  9 Oct 96 22:57:19 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Who 's on first'

Forwarded-by: Rich Salz <rsalz@osf.org>
Forwarded-by: Jon Callas <jon@worldbenders.com>


A Customer calls a UNIX consultant with a question:

Customer:     What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a
program ?

UNIX consul:  Yes, that's correct.

Customer:     No, what is it ?

UNIX consul:  Yes.

Customer:     So, which is the one ?

UNIX consul:  No. 'which' is used to find the program.

Customer:     Stop this. Who are you ?

UNIX consul:  Use 'who am i' not 'who r yoo'. You can also 'finger yoo' to
get information about yoo'.

Customer:     All I want to know is what finds the revision code ?

UNIX consul:  Use 'what'.

Customer:     That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true ?

UNIX consul:  No. 'true' gives you 0.

Customer:     Which one ?

UNIX consul:  'true' gives you 0. 'which programname'

Customer:     Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

UNIX consul:  Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what
program' to get the revision code.

Customer:     I want to find the revision code.

UNIX consul:  You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

Customer:     Which command will do what I need?

UNIX consul:  No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

Customer:     I think I understand. Let me write that.

UNIX consul:  You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

Customer:     Write what?

UNIX consul:  No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

Customer:     Cut that out!

UNIX consul:  Yes. those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the
options.

Customer:     Do you always do this ?

UNIX consul:  'du' will give you disk usage.

Customer:     HELP!

UNIX consul:  'help' is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).

Customer:     You make me angry.

UNIX consul:  No, I don't 'make me' angry but I did 'make programname' when
I was upset once.

Customer:     I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

UNIX consul:  No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system
has 'more'.

Customer:     Nice help! I'm confused more now!

UNIX consul:  Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is
better not to 'nice help'. and 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is.
Unless of course 'now' is a file name.

Customer:     This is almost as confusing as my PC.

UNIX consul:  I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me get you to
the Pascal compiler team...

© 1996 Peter Langston