Re: Default behaviour of 'ifconfig'

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> tcsh and csh are giving awful feedback:

> csh: {1} ifconfig -?
> ifconfig: No match.

> Ifconfig said what?!

ifconfig said it can't find anything matching a glob pattern,
conceptually speaking.  That the code is actually in the shell rather
than in the ifconfig binary is an implementation detail; compare with
VMS or DOS, which do the same conceptual thing but make the other
choice as to where to implement it.

Personally, I'd prefer that the message name the shell, but I can
understand the principle.

> To use a bare ? for pattern matching probably made sense forty years
> ago, given the technology of the day.  Today, I think a chord such as
> Alt-? might be more appropriate, but we're using a 40 year-old
> terminal abstraction.

Not only that, but it requires that all keyboards have an alt key, that
alt-? be distinguishable from other keystrokes, and that shell command
lines be made up of keystrokes rather than characters.  It could be
done, but it wouldn't be very much like Unix any longer.

> Regardless, the shell should visually indicate the special status of
> the character using color, reverse-video, or underscoring, when the
> terminal supports that.

This has basically the same problem, only in the other direction:
you're substantially enriching the minimal capabilities required to
support the interface.  It could be done, but it would be incompatible
in a relatively crippling way.

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