What is on Your Mind?

Oh, my goodness! The GOod PEople(tm) are on the loose!

Well, if we want to rename "kill" to "stop" why not rename "yes" to "just_say_no" or "tar" to a lightweight "feather"? How about renaming "cat" to something less ridiculuos to our other four-legged friends. With respect to our canine friends there should be a "dog" along with the "cat", yes? Not to mention some cozy (and probably rapidly-spawning) "rabbit" process, a "guinea-pig" and some cuddly "teddybear".

Not to forget the rude "du", which could be called "please_i_beg_your_pardon_but_isn't_this_obvious_already" and "shutdown" could be named "actively_seeking_chapter_eleven_protection_while_setting_free_some_workers_in_a_socially_acceptable _way" - hey, its even a lot easier to type that way, no?

How about signals? Hey, there is one called - horribile dictu - ABORT. Shouldn't this be called "CHOICE" from now on - or, better yet, be removed from the system in favour of a "LIFE" signal, which duplicates the process against the will of the system administrator? After all, as Jesus has no qualms with people killing people once they are grown up but detests people removing amorphous cell heaps he sure prefers system crashes over the stopping of processes not allowed to do all their intended purposes.

And, finally, how about renaming UNIX to "PC" (procreatively challenged)?

bakunin

Jlliagre is right.

After all "kill -9" is often described as "kill with extreme prejudice". To euthanise with extreme prejudice is just plain first degree murder!

I see your point, perhaps we could get away with:

Code:

unfortunate_accident -9

Geeze.. had a flashback to the day AOL dumped "normals" on the net...

I think a more appropriate command would be

Code:

divine_intervention -9

After all, any sender expecting results from this command would have ultimate power over the receiver

For some people the use of anything with a religious connection would be more, not less, offensive.

The fact is that there will always be someone who feels the need to make all they see conform to their subjective and restrictive view of the actual relationships of arbitrary systems. Suggesting that "kill" in the unix world has anything to do with humans is not reasonable and points to a more disturbing underlying belief of some people that technical forums should be used as a vehicle of nebulous conformity. That was the reason for my reference to AOL and divine intervention.

I have been here since the internet consisted of less than 1200 modems. Since AOL, there has been dulling of something truly brilliant. I had hoped this would have been something along the James Burke experience rather than what I see today

Sorry for the mini rant..

I'll be quiet now

No, these terms in the computer world have zero to do with the real world of humans.

Since the original poster just dropped into the forums out of nowhere, has only posted one post (this one), which resembles a troll post, just to cause controversy, I recommend to the mods that we close this thread, if the mods see fit to do so.

I really don't see the point of this post about people being "offended" by a term used in computers. People also use the word "kill" to describe turning off engines, lawn mowers, projects, budgets, etc. Zombie and orphan is used in similar ways.



Cheers.