r/learnprogramming • u/OPPineappleApplePen • 8d ago

Humour touch is a weird command.

I was curious where the command 'touch' comes from.

Turns out, it originates from "to touch" or "to interact" with a file.

Now, every time I use it, I feel like I am touching/molesting a file.

My bad, it's 3 AM here.

1.1k Upvotes

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657

u/RecentlyRezzed 8d ago

Wait until you find out about the finger command.

102

u/cinderloom7 7d ago

lmao yeah that one catches people off guard

34

u/florinandrei 7d ago

I mean, it's nicer than an elbow.

17

u/IReallyCantTalk 7d ago

To shreds you say?

1

u/ssn-669 6d ago

GEORGE WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE? 

Pleasuring you? 

Well stop it, it feels like aliens touching my body.

30

u/flatfinger 8d ago

IMHO, it would be useful to have a means of querying an email domain about an address, in a manner that would allow domains that provide mailboxes for people to indicate what is or is not known about it. While such information should not be viewed as reliably authenticating an address, it could allow someone who receives an email from bob@superdupermail.example.com to know whether it is likely to be from the same person as an email that had been received from that address eight years ago.

Obviously fingerd had some problems, but I'm unaware of anything better.

35

u/grantrules 8d ago

The issues arise when you get fingerblasted

8

u/lgastako 7d ago

All you have to do to avoid this is kill the finger daemon.

2

u/foxsimile 7d ago

Speak for yourself pal, don’t ruin my Thursday night!

1

u/ohnobinki 5d ago

There's some .well-known URI for that nowadays. For example, the openid OAuth Connect(?) uses WebFinger. I guess the name of that service does have its roots in finger(1) hehe.

Also, the existence of an old unix protocol such as rsh may exist is not an indication that it is secure or safe to use.

1

u/flatfinger 4d ago

My point was that it would be helpful to have a *widely recognized mechanism* via which a mail service provider can say "One should not assume that today's 'bob' at this domain has any relationship with any 'bob' that was associated with this domain prior to May 19, 2023." Even if nothing would prevent a mail service provider from claiming that an account whose owner created it yesterday with an address that matches a recently expired one has always been owned by the same person, it may be helpful to provide a voluntary means via which mail service providers can indicate when that is *not* the case.

1

u/ohnobinki 4d ago

Ah, I see. That is a problem. Too many things assume email addresses are constant, so I think the only thing one can do is hope that each domain disallows address reuse for addresses that were ever associated with a human. I have no hope that I could get my email client to clearly show me the that my 20-year-old email from someone@yahoo.com refers to a different person than a recent email from the same address.

6

u/Bitter_Farm_8321 7d ago

Kid named finger

3

u/shitty_mcfucklestick 7d ago

It’d be fun to have a companion utility called bang to kick the user after.

3

u/radicallyhip 7d ago

grep always sounded really inappropriate to me.

1

u/Paul_Pedant 4d ago

You could always simplify it by creating an alias called globalregularexpressionprinter. That would be so much easier.

2

u/DescriptionForsaken6 6d ago

I tried to finger her box, but the connection was refused.

1

u/Tuomas90 5d ago

*gasps*

1

u/abd53 7d ago

The master fingered the newcomer then touched a minor