Re: cut 2.0a

[Bob Proulx]

> > Reductio ad absurdum.

I had overreacted somewhat.  My apologies.  It was a knee jerk
reaction because so often people do ask for things which are much
different than what the program is designed to do or that already
exists in other programs.

> > I am suggesting that cut merely be taught to recognize random
> > amounts of whitespace as a delimiter, which would make it a more
> > useful utility without changing its other behaviors.

That point you make "without changing its other behaviors" is a key
point which I had missed previously.  Sometimes it is required to
break backward compatibility.  But one should not do so gratuitously.

> > That would no more make it an awk than adding a JATO unit to a car
> > would make it a space shuttle.

  http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html

> Bad News : gnu textutils must be 100% compatible with the past
> 
> Good News : I needn't be.
> 
> See : http://alexautils.sourceforge.com
> 
> Which has this change for cut, plus many other improvements to gnu utils.

I think you mean http://alexautils.sourceforge.net which does indeed
have many interesting additions and extensions.

Bob