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From: donham@escrime.kidpub.org (Perry Donham)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?
Date: 21 May 1997 11:06:59 -0400
Organization: KidPub WWW Publishing
Sender: donham@escrime.kidpub.org
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Message-ID: <m2lo58zwx7.fsf@escrime.kidpub.org>
References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de>
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In-reply-to: mark@dukat.mark.nfr.com's message of 21 May 1997 00:23:49 -0400
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>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Sienkiewicz <mark@dukat.mark.nfr.com> writes:
Mark> Many people seem to have an opinion on the meaning of "su".
Mark> Going to the source:
Mark> "UNIX TIME-SHARING SYSTEM: UNIX PROGRAMMERS MANUAL Seventh
Mark> Edition, Volume 1 January, 1979"
[snip]
Mark> This, by the way, is called a "reference". It is how you
Mark> tell someone where the information comes from. The nice
Mark> thing about a reference is that anybody can check it. If
Mark> you can find a copy of the same book, you can see that what
Mark> I quoted above is accurate and not just "gee, I seem to
Mark> remember that..." or even "I heard from somebody who heard
Mark> from somebody who talked to Dennis Ritchie that..."
Point taken, however non-referential discourse is at the very core of
being human. If everyone just immediately spouted chapter and vers on
every topic, we wouldn't have much of a discussion, would we? Were I
coding a program that was to participate in the Turing Test, for
example, I'd certainly have it respond to many questions with, "I seem
to recall that..."
(No, wait, I seem to recall that Turing, in his original paper, called
the test 'The Imitation Game'. I have the reference here somewhere...)
Regards,
Perry
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