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.

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