On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Steve D'Aprano <steve+pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > In DOS, it might be the dir command itself. The disadvantage of the DOS way > of doing this is that *every single command and application* has to > re-implement its own globbing, very possibly inconsistently. That's a lot > of duplicated work and re-inventing the wheel, and the user will never know > what > > some_program a* > > will do.
ISTR that the way DOS/Windows operate at the text prompt level was modeled on VMS. As you indicated, each command was responsible for its own "globbing". I've never programmed in DOS or Windows, and its been decades since I programmed in VMS, but I imagine that both environments probably provide some standard sort of globbing library. On an only peripherally related note, I was reminded this morning of how some/many GUI environments try to protect people from themselves. I am just now coming up to speed in a new job which provides me with a Windows window onto an otherwise Linux development environment. I tried starting the X server this morning (something called Xming), and it complained about not being able to write its log file (I suspect Xming was alread. I tried to navigate to that location through the Computer doohickey (Explorer?) but couldn't get there. The program (or more likely the program's programmers) had decided that I had no business "exploring" into my AppData folder. To get there, I had to drop into a command prompt. So, another vote for a text/shell interface. It gives you enough rope to hang yourself, but assumes you won't, because, "we're all adults here." I do understand why Windows hides stuff from users in the GUI though. As a webmas...@python.org monitor, I can attest to the relatively large number of questions received there asking about removing Python "because I don't use it for anything." :-) This started happening about the time the long defunct Compaq started to write admin tools for Windows in Python. Skip -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list