On 2017-01-04 09:01, David Sommerseth wrote:
> On 04/01/17 05:54, jdow wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Off the top of my head, dnsdomainname, domainname, nisdomainname,
>>> ypdomainname are symlinks to hostname; halt, poweroff, reboot,
>>> shutdown are symlinks to systemctl; view is a symlink to vi; etc.
>>
>> I hadn't dug that far. But, again, it makes sense in a weird sort of
>> way. It is really an ultimate reuse of code, right? {^_-}
>
> In essence, yes.  IMO,there is often a misconception of the Unix
> philosophy.  There is a good thought behind "a single program does a
> single task, and does it well".  But that does not mean that each single
> program must be a standalone binary, built from a standalone source code.

Besides, "one thing" is about as vague as the politicians' offers of "hope" or 
"change". Each one is modulo the speaker's definition of whatever is being 
discussed. If it is "add an iptables entry" then you "need" multiple files. If 
it means "manages iptables well" then you are encouraged to use one file. But, 
in the dark corners I inhabited decades ago that meant "ls" was neither a bunch 
of files, one for each way ls can be used, nor a single file whose behavior is 
based on input parameter 0. It meant we had "-" options. That feels more 
"wholesome", if you can catch my drift. If you go looking for "ls", for whatever 
reason - binary patch maybe, it is right there staring you in the face. With 
"foobar" that behaves differently when you call it "foo", "bar", or "baz" 
looking for the command "bar" could become tedious. But, then, why should one go 
looking for it? Erm, why should anybody ever need more than 64k? (About where 
computers started becoming human usable. Let's hear it for the HP2100S, my real 
birth machine. We shall ignore the IBM 7090 from my college days, PLEASE.)

There might be a parable in the above. Clarity at the expense of efficiency is 
bad. Efficiency at the expense of Clarity is bad. Finding a good compromise is 
best. And even that's not easy.

{^_^}