who(1)'s on what(1)?

(A Unix folklore from 1980s or 1990s)


A Customer calls a UNIX consultant with a question.
Customer: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?
Consultant: Yes, that's correct.
Customer: No, what is it ?
Consultant: Yes.
Customer: So, which is the one ?
Consultant: No. which is used to find the program.
Customer: Stop this. Who are you ?
Consultant: Use who am i not who r yoo. You can also finger yoo to get information about yoo.
Customer: All I want to know is what finds the revision code ?
Consultant: Use what.
Customer: That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true ?
Consultant: No. true gives you 0.
Customer: Which one ?
Consultant: true gives you 0. which programname.
Customer: Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?
Consultant: Type find / -name it -print to find it. Type what program to get the revision code.
Customer: I want to find the revision code.
Consultant: You can't find revisioncode, you must use what program.
Customer: Which command will do what I need?
Consultant: No. which command will find command.
Customer: I think I understand. Let me write that.
Consultant: You can write that only if that is a user on your system.
Customer: Write what?
Consultant: No. write that. what program.
Customer: Cut that out!
Consultant: Yes. Those are valid files for cut. Don't forget the options.
Customer: Do you always do this ?
Consultant: du will give you disk usage.
Customer: HELP!
Consultant: help is only used for SCCS.
Customer: You make me angry.
Consultant: No, I don't make me angry but I did make programname when I was upset once.
Customer: I don't want to make trouble, so no more.
Consultant: No more? which will help you find more. Every system has more.
Customer: Nice help! I'm confused more now!
Consultant: Understand that since help is such a small program, it is better not to nice help. And more now is not allowed but at now is. Unless of course now is a file name.
Customer: This is almost as confusing as my PC.
Consultant: I didn't know you needed help with pc. Let me get you to the Pascal compiler team.

Created: long time ago
Last modified: Sat May 21 11:11:24 CEST 2016