Unix Programming - Basics of the Unix Philosophy - Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising
Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising
to say, it should say nothing.
One of Unix's oldest and most persistent design rules is that when a
program has nothing interesting or surprising to say, it should
shut up. Well-behaved Unix programs do their jobs
unobtrusively, with a minimum of fuss and bother. Silence is
golden.
This “silence is golden” rule evolved originally
because Unix predates video displays. On the slow printing terminals
of 1969, each line of unnecessary output was a serious drain on the
user's time. That constraint is gone, but excellent reasons for
terseness remain.
I think that the terseness of Unix programs is a central feature
of the style. When your program's output becomes another's input, it
should be easy to pick out the needed bits. And for people it is
a human-factors necessity — important information should not
be mixed in with verbosity about internal program behavior. If all
displayed information is important, important information is easy to
find.
--Ken Arnold
Well-designed programs treat the user's attention and
concentration as a precious and limited resource, only to be claimed
when necessary.
(We'll discuss the Rule of Silence and the reasons for it in
more detail at the end of Chapter11.)
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