pfalstad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Falstad) (02/27/91)
ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) wrote: > To all of you out there that answer questions straight forward sans flame, >I congratulate you on simply answering the questions and getting on with your >lives in an orderly fashion. To everybody else, I'll try to think of some >really dumb questions so that you can get really angry and bring your stress >level up to self-destruct level. Maybe you'll die of a heart attack trying >to respond to such a stupid question. That would be nice as you would be >doing us all a favor. OK! 1) How do I remove a file whose name begins with a "-" ? (repost) 2) How do I remove a file with funny characters in the filename ? 3) How do I get a recursive directory listing? 4) How do I get the current directory into my prompt? 5) How do I read characters from a terminal without requiring the user to hit RETURN? 6) How do I read characters from the terminal in a shell script? 7) How do I check to see if there are characters to be read without actually reading? 8) How do I find the name of an open file? 9) How do I rename "*.foo" to "*.bar", or change file names to lowercase? 10) Why do I get [some strange error message] when I "rsh host command" ? 11) How do I find out the creation time of a file? 12) How do I use "rsh" without having the rsh hang around until the remote command has completed? 13) How do I truncate a file? 14) How do I {set an environment variable, change directory} inside a program or shell script and have that change affect my current shell? 15) Why doesn't find's "{}" symbol do what I want? 16) How do I redirect stdout and stderr separately in csh? 17) How do I set the permissions on a symbolic link? 18) When someone refers to 'rn(1)' or 'ctime(3)', what does the number in parentheses mean? 19) What does {awk,grep,fgrep,egrep,biff,cat,gecos,nroff,troff,tee,bss} stand for? 20) How does the gateway between "comp.unix.questions" and the "info-unix" mailing list work? 21) How do I "undelete" a file? 22) How can a process detect if it's running in the background? 23) How can an executing program determine its own pathname? 24) How do I tell inside .cshrc if I'm a login shell? 25) Why doesn't redirecting a loop work as intended? (Bourne shell) 26) How do I use popen() to open a process for reading AND writing? 27) How do I run 'passwd', 'ftp', 'telnet', 'tip' and other interactive programs from a shell script or in the background? 28) How do I sleep() in a C program for less than one second? 29) How can I get setuid shell scripts to work? 30) What are some useful Unix or C books? 31) How do I construct a shell glob-pattern that matches all files except "." and ".." ? 32) How do I find the last argument in a Bourne shell script? 33) How do I pronounce "vi" , or "!", or "/*", or ...? Wizard-level questions: 34) Where can I get the FAQ? 35) What does RTFM mean? 36) How do I read the manual? "man" doesn't work at my site. I tried asking local wizards but they don't know either. And Sun doesn't return my phone calls. Also, how do I post news to comp.unix.wizards? And how do I read news? Please post all replies. Thanks! -- Paul Falstad, pfalstad@phoenix.princeton.edu PLink:HYPNOS GEnie:P.FALSTAD I think there should be more race prejudice. <slap> LESS race prejudice. Princeton University apologizes for the content of this article.
brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) (02/27/91)
In article <22886@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: > I encourage anybody who can read this message to post every question > concerning UNIX that they can think of to this newgroup. It does not matter > if it is simply or complex. I just absolutely love to see all the > electionically-inflated egos just get so bent over backwards in a childish > uproar just because somebody invaded their private sanctum I am told that this man also distributes leaflets encouraging women to use men's restrooms. ---Dan
tmanos@wyvern.uucp (Tom Manos) (02/27/91)
ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: > I encourage anybody who can read this message to post every question >concerning UNIX that they can think of to this newgroup. It does not matter >if it is simply or complex. I just absolutely love to see all the >electionically-inflated egos just get so bent over backwards in a childish >uproar just because somebody invaded their private sanctum with what they >think is a stupid and meaningless question. Sheesh, what a jerk. You know it's wrong. You presumably know what's right... i.e. where to post to get simple questions answered. I don't understand boneheads like you. Probably just as well. I've never said anything here, and probably won't again, but this was the straw, I guess. I don't really mind the folks who don't know any better and learn from their mistakes, but this kind of mindless idiocy is just beyond belief. I'm not going to have a coronary, jerk, and I'm not stressed out. I'm amazed at your stupidity. Tom --- tmanos@wyvern -- Tom Manos @ wyvern Norfolk, VA
oz@yunexus.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) (02/28/91)
In article <22886@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: > I encourage anybody who can read this message to post every question >concerning UNIX that they can think of to this newgroup. It does not matter >if it is simply or complex. I just absolutely love to see all the >electionically-inflated egos just get so bent over backwards in a childish >uproar just because somebody invaded their private sanctum with what they >think is a stupid and meaningless question. It does not take an electronically inflated ego to see that you are being silly, and there exists other newsgroups (comp.unix.questions for example) for questions that simply don't belong in this newsgroup. On the other hand, one may also take a highly irregular approach to obtaining answers for various UNIX-related questions by carefully reading the FAQ texts and other UN*X literature [see listing] instead of posting something somewhere. >The only "stupid" question is the one that isn't asked. There are multitudes of ways to ask a question. Posting to this here net in the appropriate place is only one way. oz --- SunOS: How do you spell relief? | internet: oz@nexus.yorku.ca rm -rf /usr/openwin /usr/etc/yp* | uucp: utzoo/utai!yunexus!oz --- %T The AWK Programming Language %A Al Aho %A Brian Kernighan %A Peter Weinberger %I Addison Wesley %D 1988 %T Advanced C Programming for Displays %A Marc J. Rochkind %I Prentice-Hall %D 1988 %T Advanced UNIX Programming %A Marc J. Rochkind %I Prentice-Hall %D 1985 %T The C Programming Language, First Edition %A Brian W. Kernigan %A Dennis M. Ritchie %I Prentice-Hall %D 1978 %T The C Programming Language, Second Edition %A Brian W. Kernigan %A Dennis M. Ritchie %I Prentice-Hall %D 1988 %T C Traps and Pitfalls %A Andrew Koenig %I Addison-Wesley %D 1988 %T C: A Reference Manual, 2nd Edition %A Samuel P. Harbison %A Guy L. Steele Jr. %I Prentice-Hall %D 1987 %T Checking C programs with lint %A Ian Darwin %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %D 1988 %T Compiler Design in C %A Allen I. Holub %I Prentice-Hall %D 1990 %T Data Structures and C Programs. %A Christopher Van Wyk %D 1988 %T The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System %A Samuel J. Leffler %A Marshall Kirk McKusick %A Michael J. Karels, %A John S. Quarterman %I Addison-Wesley %D 1989 %K BSD-Internals %T The Design of the Unix Operating System %A Maurice J. Bach %I Prentice-Hall %T Internetworking with TCP/IP %A Douglas Comer %I Prentice-Hall %D 1988 %T The Kornshell, Command and Programming Language %A David G. Korn %A Morris I. Bolsky %I Prentice-Hall %D 1989 %T Life With UNIX %A Don Libes %A Sandy Ressler %I Prentice-Hall %D 1989 %T Numerical Recipes in C, The Art of Scientific Computing %A William H. Press, %A Brian Flannery %A Saul Teukolsky %A William Vetterling %I Cambridge University Press %D 1988 %T Operating Systems, Design and Implementation %A Andrew S. Tanenbaum %I Prentice-Hall %D 1987 %T Operating System Design, The XINU approach %A Douglas Comer %I Prentice-Hall %D 1984 %T Portable C Software %A Mark Horton %I Prentice Hall %D 1990 %T Portable C and UNIX System Programming %A J. E. Lapin %I Prentice-Hall %D 1987 %T Software Tools %A Brian W. Kernighan %A P. J. Plauger %I Addison-Wesley %D 1976 %T UNIX Network Programming %A Richard W. Stevens %I Prentice Hall %D 1990 %T The UNIX Programming Environment %A Brian W. Kernighan %A Rob Pike %I Prentice-Hall %D 1984 %T UNIX System Administration Handbook %A Evi Nemeth %A Garth Snyder %A Scott Seebass %I Prentice Hall %D 1989 %T UNIX System: Readings and Applications %A AT&T %I Prentice-Hall %D 1987
shore@mtxinu.COM (Melinda Shore) (02/28/91)
In article <22886@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: ... an article with marginal content. He then goes on to say: >The only "stupid" question is the one that isn't asked. (probably due to >fear of flames from the electro-egos) The stupid questions are annoying. The stupid answers are a problem. The number of incorrect postings here is sickening. The number of incorrect solutions that are posted over and over and over and over and over is beyond sickening. -- Software longa, hardware brevis Melinda Shore shore@mtxinu.com mt Xinu ..!uunet!mtxinu.com!shore
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (02/28/91)
> To all of you out there that answer questions straight forward sans flame,
I sometimes answer them that way, albeit often in email. I sometimes
answer them by mentioning the section in the documentation where the
answer can be found, without doing the asker's work for them by looking
it up and typing them in for them.
Not all the "please don't use 'comp.unix.wizards' as the first place you
ask your questions" responses are, perhaps, as "nice" as some might
like; however, that does not totally invalidate the point some of them
make.
Another way of putting some of the same responses that might, perhaps,
be "nicer" is:
There is some turnaround time involved in asking a question on
the net; the posting doesn't necessarily hit every news reader's
machine within minutes of its posting, not everybody is reading
news continuously, and not everybody responds instantly to
questions.
There are other resources that can be used to obtain answers to
questions, such as:
the documentation for your system (either printed or
on-line);
people in your office or down the hall or otherwise nearby
at your site;
the list of Frequently Asked Questions, periodically posted
to "comp.unix.questions".
If you can get your answers from one of those sources, you may
get your answer *much* faster than you would if you'd only
posted your question to the net, and would thus be able to get
your job done more quickly.
In addition, when you ask a question on the net, you run a good
chance of getting a number of *wrong* answers to it; you
presumably didn't know the right answer, or you wouldn't have
asked the question, so it may not be obvious to you which of
those answers are right and which are wrong.
Given that, you might find it easier overall to try checking the
local documentation, or local users, or the FAQ list, first,
before asking a question on the net.
I.e., it's not "please make *our* lives easier by not posting questions
to the net before trying other sources of answers", it's "why not make
*your* life easier - by possibly getting your answers faster, and
getting more reliable answers to boot - by trying the aforementioned
other sources of answers?"pmoore@hemel.bull.co.uk (Paul Moore) (02/28/91)
I understand what that long list of FAQ was trying to say - ie the same questions get asked over and over again. Is there a FAQ posting for this group - how often? Just because you dont know all the answers in a FAQ list doesnt make you stupid. -- !---------------------------------------------------------------! ! Paul Moore, Bull HN UK, Maxted Rd,Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7DZ. ! ! Phone:(44) 442 232222 Fax:(44) 442 234084 ! ! pmoore@hemel.bull.co.uk "a smile, a song and a core dump" ! !---------------------------------------------------------------!
hamish@mate.sybase.com (Just Another Deckchair on the Titanic) (03/01/91)
In article <22886@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: > > I encourage anybody who can read this message to post every question >concerning UNIX that they can think of to this newgroup. It does not matter >if it is simply or complex. I just absolutely love to see all the >electionically-inflated egos just get so bent over backwards in a childish >uproar just because somebody invaded their private sanctum with what they >think is a stupid and meaningless question. You haven't really got it yet, have you? It's the dumb *answers* that tend to get flamed, the classic "I-haven't-really-tested-this-yet-but- my-brother's-friend-once-said- it-worked-for-his-system" responses (see some of the sillier answers to the recent "I have a filename with a dash in it and I want to remove it" for examples of this. Hamish ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hamish Reid Sybase Inc, 6475 Christie Ave, Emeryville CA 94608 USA +1 415 596-3917 hamish@sybase.com ...!{mtxinu,sun}!sybase!hamish
allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR) (03/03/91)
As quoted from <1991Feb27.110606.1363@wyvern.uucp> by tmanos@wyvern.uucp (Tom Manos): +--------------- | ccastc2@prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) writes: | >concerning UNIX that they can think of to this newgroup. It does not matter | >if it is simply or complex. I just absolutely love to see all the | >electionically-inflated egos just get so bent over backwards in a childish | >uproar just because somebody invaded their private sanctum with what they | >think is a stupid and meaningless question. | | straw, I guess. I don't really mind the folks who don't know any better and | learn from their mistakes, but this kind of mindless idiocy is just beyond | belief. I'm not going to have a coronary, jerk, and I'm not stressed out. | I'm amazed at your stupidity. +--------------- There's a much easier solution than flaming them: if they won't ask the right questions in the right newsgroups, ignore them. This might even encourage them to ask somewhere where answers are forthcoming. ++Brandon -- Me: Brandon S. Allbery VHF/UHF: KB8JRR on 220, 2m, 440 Internet: allbery@NCoast.ORG Packet: KB8JRR @ WA8BXN America OnLine: KB8JRR AMPR: KB8JRR.AmPR.ORG [44.70.4.88] uunet!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery Delphi: ALLBERY