Re: Java

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

   Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 10:55:22 -0500 (EST)
   From: Dan Weinreb <dlw@exceloncorp.com>
   
      Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 09:35:59 -0600
      From: Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>
      ...
   	     I can also contribute changes to the main source bases.
   
   Glendower: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
   Hotspur: "Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come
             when you do call for them?"

Heh, heh, heh!

      Common for programmers. Even programmers who do FFTs all day need to
      move files around and process text.  We all work with input data and
      output data. And that data is typically stored in text files.
   
   I "glob" so rarely that I didn't even know what the word "glob" meant
   until you mentioned it and I had to go look it up.
   
Actually, Dan, if you use a Unix system, you probably glob
all the time.  You just seldom write a program that globs.

"Glob" is just an obscure bit of jargon that refers to the
expansion of patterns (usually used for file names) in a Unix
command line.  Maybe you should re-read a recent edition of
The Hacker's Dictionary!  Here's the relevant entry:

    glob /glob/, *not* /glohb/ /v.,n./ [Unix] To expand special characters
    in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also
    called `globbing'). The Unix conventions for filename wildcarding have
    become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers use some of them in
    written English, especially in email or news on technical topics.
    Those commonly encountered include the following:

	 *    wildcard for any string (see also UN*X)

	 ?    wildcard for any single character (generally read this way
	      only at the beginning or in the middle of a word)

	 []   delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters

	 {}   alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus,
	      `foo{baz,qux}' would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux'

    Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses ambiguity).
    "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the talk.politics subgroups on
    Usenet). Other examples are given under the entry for X. Note that
    glob patterns are similar, but not identical, to those used in
    regexps.

    Historical note: The jargon usage derives from `glob', the name of a
    subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne versions of
    the Unix shell.

(What?  Doesn't *everyone* remember the names of subprograms
from archaic pre-Bourne versions of the Unix shell??? :-)

--Guy