python 2.7.12 on Linux behaving differently than on Windows

Gregory Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Dec 6 16:44:05 EST 2016


BartC wrote:
> But those would be silly.
> 
> Some special syntax is known about: | < and > for example. % less so

What you need to understand is that, to a Unix user,
* and ? are *just as well known* as |, < and >. Perhaps
even more so, because they're likely to be used much
sooner than piping and redirection. And when learning
about them, the fact that they're interpreted by the
shell is learned at the same time.

> And the justification? Well, %ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE% gets converted in 
> Windows, so why not?!

No, the justification is that the Unix convention allows
the shell to provide certain useful functions that Unix
users value.

If you don't want those functions, you're free to write
your own shell that works however you want. Complaining
that everyone *else* should want the same things you
want is not reasonable.

-- 
Greg



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