wildcard matching

[Steve Summit]

Flames, of course, beget flames, and I expected someone might
take issue with my recent bout of gratuitous DOS-bashing.
However, someone apparently thought I was flaming _him_, and
ragged on me rather publicly, so I suppose I sorta have to
respond publicly, too.  Sorry about this.

>From article <5012.2783BE37 at urchin.fidonet.org>:
> ...why are you so rude?  This is to be a discussion group
> where an exchange of ideas and knowledge takes place.  It is not
> your personal message arena where you are free to insult, and attempt
> to intimidate your fellow man.

Yes, it is a discussion group, and a fairly sophisticated and
literate one at that, so sometimes one has to read carefully to
avoid misunderstanding.  What I wrote was

> While I don't believe that computer "science" is a
> hard enough science that those without formal training in it
> should be deprecated, it is nevertheless the case that those
> whose only exposure to it is through MS-DOS or other Microsoft
> "operating systems" should realize that those "systems" are so
> mind-bogglingly behind the state-of-the-art that extrapolation
> based on them is bound to be embarrassingly futile.

That sentence is a bit on the long side, but it is not meant to
disparage anyone (outside of Microsoft).  I realized when I wrote
it that it might be read as a put-down of "those without formal
training," and I see now that I should have worried a bit more.

I _don't_ look down on people who use computers without having
had formal training.  In fact, the quotes around "science" are a
clue to my real attitude: since formal training in computer
"science" is no prerequisite for success, it is the "science"
which I look down on.  All I was saying was that if someone's
entire exposure to computers is through a PC, there is a lot that
person is missing out on.  This is not to demean that person; I
would be naive if I did not realize that there are orders of
magnitude more people whose only exposure to computers is through
PC's than there are people who are familiar with the "real"
computers I happen to prefer.

("Embarrassingly futile" was admittedly unnecessarily harsh.
However: if you try to extrapolate, based on MS-DOS, how a "real"
operating system might do something, you can easily embarrass
yourself, such as by suggesting "simplified" wildcard matching
algorithms patterned after DOS's simpleminded semantics.  I'm not
disparaging someone who makes such a mistake; the words
"embarrassingly futile" were, believe it or not, intended to be
basically sympathetic.)

> MS-DOS does not implement wildcard
> matching properly (noticed in retrospect), OS/2 does.
> I can see your distaste for MS-DOS, which is more of a file loader
> than an operating system.  What is your beef with OS/2?

I have never used OS/2 and know little about it.  I implied that
it shared DOS's crippled wildcard algorithm only because the
complainant originally said it did (in <4739.277BA2FB at urchin.fidonet.org>:
"Consider that anything trailing the '*' character is ignored
anyway, at least in MS-DOS, and OS/2").

> Are you perhaps just an anti-MicroSoft bigot?

That much I'll admit to.  I'd expound on this, but it'd be more
flamage having nothing to do with C.

To everyone else: I have been appalled at how easily silly,
pointless flames seem to be cropping up lately, in all manner of
newsgroups, and I apologize for having been part of one here.

                                            Steve Summit
                                            scs at adam.mit.edu