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timm / crusty

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sandbox & doc2unix #45

Closed GoogleCodeExporter closed 9 years ago

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago 
the two programs never show anything on the screen. its harder for ppl to
understand the code just by looking at it. there should be some messages
abt the steps when we run it. and also if we have to pass some arguments
there should be a list of the correct arguments user can pass before
installation.
for example in the sandbox script we can show the path of the temp file on
the screen so that the user can better understand the steps.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by ali.b...@gmail.com on 1 Feb 2007 at 7:37

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago 
Sandbox doing nothing might be an issue with how you are using it. See
trunk/doc/sandbox.emf.

As to dos2unix being silent, that is the old unix "silence is golden" attitude. 
The
following notes come from http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html:

Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say 
nothing.

One of Unix's oldest and most persistent design rules is that when a program has
nothing interesting or surprising to say, it should shut up. Well-behaved Unix
programs do their jobs unobtrusively, with a minimum of fuss and bother. 
Silence is
golden.

This “silence is golden” rule evolved originally because Unix predates video
displays. On the slow printing terminals of 1969, each line of unnecessary 
output was
a serious drain on the user's time. That constraint is gone, but excellent 
reasons
for terseness remain.

I think that the terseness of Unix programs is a central feature of the style. 
When
your program's output becomes another's input, it should be easy to pick out the
needed bits. And for people it is a human-factors necessity — important 
information
should not be mixed in with verbosity about internal program behavior. If all
displayed information is important, important information is easy to find.

-- Ken Arnold    

Well-designed programs treat the user's attention and concentration as a 
precious and
limited resource, only to be claimed when necessary.

Original comment by menzies....@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2007 at 5:08