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nailed by DEL

Roedy

Roedy

Jun
127
2
Typed the following command:

del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5

When I should have typed

del /sexy "Dreamweaver CS5"

to get rid of the junk the trial version of Dreamweaver left behind after the uninstall.

I was in the adobe directory at the time. To my astonishment, instead of getting an error that there were so such files as Dreamweaver or CS5, it deleted every directory and every file in the abobe tree. This behaviour violates the principle of least astonishment. I would be curious as to its rationalisation for doing that.

If you don't want to change DEL's behaviour, it would be nice of it to ask "Boss, are you sure you to wipe out all the files and directories in the Adobe tree?"

I am reminded of the "why did you do that" car-in-a-tree scene in the Gods Must be Crazy.
 
I don't know why it did what it did, but I do suspect that you would have gotten a warning message if you hadn't overridden it with the /Y....
 
I can not reproduce your problem here.

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 07:14, Roedy <> wrote:


> Typed the following command:
>
> del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5
>
> When I should have typed
>
> del /sexy "Dreamweaver CS5"
>
> to get rid of the junk the trial version of Dreamweaver left behind after
> the uninstall.
>
> I was in the adobe directory at the time. To my astonishment, instead of
> getting an error that there were so such files as Dreamweaver or CS5, it
> deleted every directory and every file in the abobe tree. This behaviour
> violates the principle of least astonishment. I would be curious as to its
> rationalisation for doing that.
>
> If you don't want to change DEL's behaviour, it would be nice of it to ask
> "Boss, are you sure you to wipe out all the files and directories in the
> Adobe tree?"
>
> I am reminded of the "why did you do that" car-in-a-tree scene in the Gods
> Must be Crazy.
>
>
>
>
>
Click to expand...



--
Jim Cook
2010 Mondays: 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 and 5/9, 9/5, 7/11, 11/7.
Next year they're Tuesday.
 
I can't reproduce it unless my test directories are empty. If they are empty, then those other subfolders do get deleted (/X).
 
it did exactly what you told it to-do /s sub directories /e no error messages /x
remove empty directories /y answer yes to all prompts


> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Sunday, 30 January 2011 4:14 a.m.
> Subject: [T&T - Miscellaneous-t-2564] nailed by DEL
>
>
> Typed the following command:
>
> del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5
>
> When I should have typed
>
> del /sexy "Dreamweaver CS5"
>
> to get rid of the junk the trial version of Dreamweaver left behind
> after the uninstall.
>
> I was in the adobe directory at the time. To my astonishment, instead
> of getting an error that there were so such files as Dreamweaver or
> CS5, it deleted every directory and every file in the abobe tree.
> This behaviour violates the principle of least astonishment. I would
> be curious as to its rationalisation for doing that.
>
> If you don't want to change DEL's behaviour, it would be nice of it
> to ask "Boss, are you sure you to wipe out all the files and
> directories in the Adobe tree?"
>
> I am reminded of the "why did you do that" car-in-a-tree scene in the
> Gods Must be Crazy.
>
>
>
>
Click to expand...
 
---- Original Message ----
From: Kachupp
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, 2011. January 29. 15:54
Subject: RE: [T&T - Miscellaneous-t-2564] nailed by DEL

| it did exactly what you told it to-do /s sub directories /e no error
| messages /x
| remove empty directories /y answer yes to all prompts
|
|
|
| Quote:
|| -----Original Message-----
|| Sent: Sunday, 30 January 2011 4:14 a.m.
|| Subject: [T&T - Miscellaneous-t-2564] nailed by DEL
||
||
|| Typed the following command:
||
|| del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5
||
|| When I should have typed
||
|| del /sexy "Dreamweaver CS5"
||
|| to get rid of the junk the trial version of Dreamweaver left behind
|| after the uninstall.
||
|| I was in the adobe directory at the time. To my astonishment, instead
|| of getting an error that there were so such files as Dreamweaver or
|| CS5, it deleted every directory and every file in the abobe tree.
|| This behaviour violates the principle of least astonishment. I would
|| be curious as to its rationalisation for doing that.
||
|| If you don't want to change DEL's behaviour, it would be nice of it
|| to ask "Boss, are you sure you to wipe out all the files and
|| directories in the Adobe tree?"
||
|| I am reminded of the "why did you do that" car-in-a-tree scene in the
|| Gods Must be Crazy.


It is exactly to avoid the habit of using /y "automatically" that I use the alias ERA (which include all your options) only whan I am sure there is nothing worth keeping, and DEL when there is a chance I don't want everything to disappear!
 
del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5


> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: RE: [T&T - Miscellaneous-t-2564] Re: nailed by DEL
>
>
> ---Quote (Originally by Kachupp)---
> it did exactly what you told it to-do /s sub directories /e no error
> messages /x
> remove empty directories /y answer yes to all prompts
> ---End Quote---
> Where did he tell it to start deleting the current working directory?
>
>
>
>
Click to expand...
 
He may of had * in it as well


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Savard [mailto:]
> Sent: Tuesday, 1 February 2011 2:41 p.m.
> Subject: RE: [T&T - Miscellaneous-t-2564] Re: nailed by DEL
>
>
> ---Quote (Originally by Kachupp)---
> del /sexy Dreamweaver CS5
> ---End Quote---
> That doesn't tell TCC to start deleting all the contents of the
> current working directory.
>
>
>
>
Click to expand...
 
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