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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Is replacing /bin/sh with bash recommended?
Date: 29 Mar 1996 17:59:21 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <4jh8dp$29g@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <4j4fmh$5e8@uriah.heep.sax.de> <4j8ops$pfo@calypso.bns.com.au> <4jeim7$cde@park.uvsc.edu> <4jgj3f$lal@coyote.Artisoft.COM>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hecate.artisoft.com
mday@elbereth.org (Matt Day) wrote:
] I have found the colorized ls extremely useful for answering questions
] like "which files are executables in this directory?", "are there any
] subdirectories in this directory?", etc. I think that most people will
] agree that it is easier to tell if the output of ls contained any green
] text than if the output contained any files with a "*" following them
] (ala ls -F). If you use neither ls -F nor the colorized ls, you're
] forced to rely on your memory of the file modes to answer those
] questions, which I suspect would be much slower and much more prone to
] error, especially if you've never been in the directory before.
I'd like the color to be conditional on the "-F" option, actually,
and have it put out "/" and "*" "@" if there isn't sufficient
"colorization" capability in the termcap.
Or if you use "-F" and stdout is not a tty.
I find that color draws your eyes to "important" files, even
when I am not looking for "important" files. That's the problem
for me. It is too effective at its intent when it does not
match my intent (which, not being a newby, is most of the time).
] I highly recommend the colorized ls. I think most people's brains are
] capable of using the color to speed up processing of the ls output. It
] is definitely not a useless, silly feature reserved for Unix newbies.
I agree. It is a good newby feature. Once you are aware of
what files are where, though, I find it to be an unncessary
distraction. Maybe I just have hyper-acute color vision.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.