I fell for a similar (but less) obvious joke on my first Linux installation back in 1995. That one used dd instead of rm. I lost a lot of code that I had written. After that, I’ve failed to see the humor in this kind of joke. There’s always the risk that someone new doesn’t understand it’s a joke, and tries it out.
No, I did not have to learn that the hard way. I could have learned it another way. You’re objectively wrong. And you don’t always have a backup. Especially not back in 1995, when this happened. Back then, backups typically happened nightly. So even with a backup, I would still have lost a day’s worth of work.
I remember on a browser-based multiplayer game in the early 2000s, the vets would tell annoying or cheating newbies that they were using the “CTRL+WIN” to see their moves. Of course, as soon as they hit CTRL+W…
I agree. The / directory may receive special considerations, and it may be extra protected, but once I was doing something with rm -r and …/* in some folder inside my home directory… it wasn’t fun.
I fell for a similar (but less) obvious joke on my first Linux installation back in 1995. That one used dd instead of rm. I lost a lot of code that I had written. After that, I’ve failed to see the humor in this kind of joke. There’s always the risk that someone new doesn’t understand it’s a joke, and tries it out.
Some folks have to learn the hard way.
No, I did not have to learn that the hard way. I could have learned it another way. You’re objectively wrong. And you don’t always have a backup. Especially not back in 1995, when this happened. Back then, backups typically happened nightly. So even with a backup, I would still have lost a day’s worth of work.
I prefer the less harmful “alt+F4” joke, though most people know what that one does by now.
I remember on a browser-based multiplayer game in the early 2000s, the vets would tell annoying or cheating newbies that they were using the “CTRL+WIN” to see their moves. Of course, as soon as they hit CTRL+W…
Yeah, it helps freeing RAM and making your pc go faster
I agree. The / directory may receive special considerations, and it may be extra protected, but once I was doing something with rm -r and …/* in some folder inside my home directory… it wasn’t fun.
It happened in this very post, actually. Serves them right for French bashing.
The rest of the time, I’d agree with you, I’ve never done this joke nor condone it.