linking /bin/cat to /bin/type

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!BH at SU-AI]

From: Brian Harvey <BH at SU-AI>
[This isn't exactly a flame, it's more a meta-flame.]
I think the quality of the discussion, at least among ourselves,
would be improved by a little less defensiveness.  If someone
complains that cat and rm and grep aren't good names for programs,
it's not responsive to point out that the names can be changed.

It IS responsive to say, as some have said, that Unix is meant
to be a development system for programmers, and is not meant to
hold the hand of naive users.  That's a point of view with which
I disagree (as 16-bit micros become prevalent, we are entering an
era in which we can rule the world, but only by abandoning that
viewpoint), but at least it is a point of view with some content.

In any operating system, at least all the ones I've ever used, it
is pretty easy to give a program another name.  And there are plenty
of cosmetic changes which I've made to my own Unix system.  But
each such change means a point on which the standard documentation
(the UPM) no longer reflects how things are on my system, which means
that I have to try to track down the 87 copies on-site, not to
mention the copies people have taken home, so that the wonderful new
feature becomes useful by being documented.  Surely it's better, if
something really is an improvement, for it to be a STANDARD, documented
improvement.  That, I suggest, is why the people who don't like
cat's name feel it worth bringing the point up with us.

A non-defensive response would be "I'm glad that's the worst problem
you have with Unix!  Maybe you're right; maybe we should adopt a new
set of standard names for the utility programs" or "I'm glad that's
the worst problem you have with Unix!  But I disagree; I think the
names we have are just fine."  But "Boy are you dumb; you can change
it yourself with this simple two-line shell script.  Why are you
wasting our precious time?" is defensive.  It amounts to saying that
every last detail in Unix as it exists today is perfect, take it or
leave it.