bug#20354: [feature request] ln with command line arguments in reverse order

[Pádraig Brady]

tag 20354 wontfix
close 20354
stop

On 18/04/15 07:09, Bernhard Voelker wrote:
> On 04/17/2015 04:52 PM, Erik Auerswald wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 01:45:02PM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:
>>> How I think about it is:
>>>
>>>   cp [OPTION]  EXISTING NEW
>>>   mv [OPTION]  EXISTING NEW
>>>   ln [OPTIONS] EXISTING NEW
>>
>> That's good wording.
> 
> IMO there's no gain if the operand names are the same, because
> then the users would have to know the tool even better.  Such
> distinction makes the users help to remember how the tool works.
> So at least for ln(1), the word LINK_NAME is perfect.
> 
> FWIW this was Jim's change to improve the wording back in 1998:
> 
> http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/commit/?id=519365bb089c

I agree. NEW above is ambiguous for example,
as DEST can already exist. Also EXISTING in the ln
case is not accurate, since the target doesn't
need to exist.

I was just indicating how I summarise the usual
use case for these in my mind, but can't think of
any improvement to the more accurate existing wording.

cheers,
Pádraig.