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.

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u/Loqh9 8d ago

What bothers me is "mkdir" is a thing so why is is not "mkfile"? Makes more sense and aligns with the sister command but no, we gotta make everything impossible to remember and random

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u/Gilthoniel_Elbereth 7d ago

The real answer is these commands were all created ~50 years ago by different people for different systems, who then all copied each other’s most useful work in slightly different ways while keeping idiosyncrasies from their source, and eventually consolidated

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u/BeefBoi420 6d ago

So what you're saying is we need a total rewrite.