Costello calls Abbott with some questions about UNIX:
Costello: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a
program?
Abbott: Yes, that’s correct.
Costello: No, what is it?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: So, which is the one?
Abbott: No. ‘which’ is used to find the program.
Costello: Stop this. Who are you?
Abbott: Use ‘who am i’ not ‘who r yoo’. You can also ‘finger yoo’ to get
information about ‘yoo’.
Costello: All I want to know is what finds the revision code?
Abbott: Use ‘what’.
Costello: That’s what I am trying to find out. Isn’t that true?
Abbott: No. ‘true’ gives you 0.
Costello: Which one?
Abbott: ‘true’ gives you 0. ‘which programname’
Costello: Let’s get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?
Abbott: Type ‘find / -name it -print’ to find ‘it’. Type ‘what program’ to
get the revision code.
Costello: I want to find the revision code.
Abbott: You can’t ‘find revisioncode’, you must use ‘what program’.
Costello: Which command will do what I need?
Abbott: No. ‘which command’ will find ‘command’.
Costello: I think I understand. Let me write that.
Abbott: You can ‘write that’ only if ‘that’ is a user on your system.
Costello: Write what?
Abbott: No. ‘write that’. ‘what program’.
Costello: Cut that out!
Abbott: Yes. those are valid files for ‘cut’. Don’t forget the options.
Costello: Do you always do this?
Abbott: ‘du’ will give you disk usage.
Costello: HELP!
Abbott: ‘help’ is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).
Costello: You make me angry.
Abbott: No, I don’t ‘make me’ angry but I did ‘make programname’ when I was
upset once.
Costello: I don’t want to make trouble, so no more.
Abbott: No ‘more’? ‘which’ will help you find ‘more’. Every system has
‘more’.
Costello: Nice help! I’m confused more now!
Abbott: Understand that since ‘help’ is such a small program, it is better
not to ‘nice help’. and ‘more now’ is not allowed but ‘at now’ is. Unless
of course ‘now’ is a file name.
Costello: This is almost as confusing as my PC.
Abbott: I didn’t know you needed help with ‘pc’. Let me get you to the
Pascal compiler team.