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Re: Learning zsh


On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 02:27:57PM -0800, Peter A. Castro wrote:
>On Fri, 14 Nov 2003, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 09:39:18PM +0000, zzapper wrote:
>> >A previous poster, indicated that this group is probably not the best
>> >place for such discussions, which is of course correct, but that said
>> >there must be a lot of Unix Newbies here. (I'm a Unix oldbie, but that
>> >means I know old Unix, rather than all this new stuff)
>>
>> There is a lot of food in a supermarket, too, but a supermarket isn't
>> the best place to hold a dinner party.
>
>I feel I must interject here.  That analogy is quite inaccurate (and,
>besides I've suddenly become hungry).  zzapper's original question is
>more akin to stopping someone on the street to ask directions.  It's not
>like he was asking for an indept analysis of steak...err, I mean "Zsh",
>merely a question on will bash potatoes, err, "scripts" will work with it
>or not.  A quick question deserts, err, "deserves" a quick answer
>(*burp*).  And, he's right.  Lots of Newbies "check in" to this list with
>cooking, err, "casual" questions.

Let's use another analogy.  I shop at a supermarket.  I want to know how
to cook pasta.  I see someone else shopping at the supermarket.  I tap
them on the shoulder and ask *that one person* for cooking tips.  That's
your analogy.

That doesn't work in a mailing list.  A closer (if still imperfect)
analogy for a mailing list is: I shop in a supermarket.  Since the
supermarket sells food and I hear voices coming over the loudspeaker all
of the time, I think it must be ok to use their loud speaker to ask
anyone in the supermarket to give me advice on how to cook pasta.
Several people start shouting advice.  Several of them are shouting "I
hate pasta!" Some are telling the shopper to cook the pasta with a flame
thrower.

Someone else hears the loudspeaker and assumes that they now have a forum
to ask about the softest toilet tissue.

A queue forms.

The mean store manager who wants his supermarket to be used for shopping
and not for the broadcasting of random questions concerning every item
sold at the supermarket, turns off the loudspeaker.

The reason I pointed to the zsh site is because *obviously* this is the
type of question with which zsh experts are quite familiar.  You are
*obviously* going to get better advice on a zsh mailing list than a
cygwin mailing list.  If this wasn't a high traffic mailing list, I
wouldn't mind so much.  But it is.

cgf

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