shebang strange thing...

[-]

"Steve Holden" <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote in message news:<gHMKa.328383$3n5.103835 at news2.central.cox.net>...
> The "old printers" you are thinking of were probably KSR or ASR teletypes,
> although similar principles apply to older precursors such as the Creed 5B
> teletypewriter (which used a 5-bit code and a shift-locking system to extend
> the character set). 

Yes, I was thinking about teletypewriter, but couldn't remember the
name.

> EOF means end of file, usually. You seem to be a bit confused. Don't worry,
> me too.
> 

Not confused, just a typo :-(

> > way is actually the "correct" way, since
> > the "cursor" needs to move down one line and start at the beginning.
> 
> Ah, so Microsoft are "correct" because they choose a system that corresponds
> to a typewriting device you don't understand and are probably too young to
> remember. I see.
> 

I was told this by a person I assumed had knowledge of this (he had
used these devices). I should learn to do some research before making
such statements in public.

> > The Unix way is of cource more elegant, because you have a digital
> > computer and not some mechanical device. It doesn't matter if it's CR
> > or LF, because both characters only does half of the operation. Apple
> > should have chosen LF to preserve compatibillity.
> 
> For that matter it might just as well have been ESC or any other arbitrary
> character value - clearly a single character will suffice to delimit a line.
> I fail to see why Apple should have chosen LF to preserve compatibility with
> Unix if Microsoft are "correct". But then I'm just a crotchety old fartbot,
> and you're just a mad surfer.
> 

I said that using just one character is more elegant, and I think
Apple was right when they chose a single character. I have no real
knowledge of the different line-endings that were used at the time,
but I assume that LF (alone) was more frequently used than CR (alone)
or other characters. If I'm right, the Apple's choice was less
compatible.