I accidentally untarred archive intended to be extracted in root directory, which among others included some files for /etc directory.
I went on to rm -rv ~/etc, but I quickly typed rm -rv /etc instead, and hit enter, while using a root account.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
      2·
      7 hours ago

      Accidents Will Happen

      If Dennis and Ken had a Selectric instead of a Teletype, we’d probably be typing “copy” and “remove” instead of “cp” and “rm.”

      Proof again that technology limits our choices as often as it expands them. After more than two decades, what is the excuse for continuing this tradition? The implacable force of history, AKA existing code and books. If a vendor replaced rm by, say, remove, then every book describing Unix would no longer apply to its system, and every shell script that calls rm would also no longer apply. Such a vendor might as well stop implement-ing the POSIX standard while it was at it.

      A century ago, fast typists were jamming their keyboards, so engineers designed the QWERTY keyboard to slow them down. Computer key-boards don’t jam, but we’re still living with QWERTY today.

      A century from now, the world will still be living with rm.

        • clif@lemmy.world
          2·
          7 hours ago

          On mechanical typewriters the little arms that slap the steel letters onto the ink ribbon/paper could get physically jammed. QWERTY was designed to make it so that was less likely to happen by placing the keys in an order that discouraged it.

          At least, that’s the way I learned it.

          Source: trust me bro

    • SalmiakDragon@feddit.nuEnglish
      42·
      12 hours ago

      The handbook has numbered pages, so why use “page X of the pdf”? I don’t see the page count in my mobile browser - you made me do math.

      (I think it’s page number 22 btw, for anyone else wondering)

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
        3·
        9 hours ago

        The handbook has numbered pages, so why use “page X of the pdf”?

        Because the book’s page 1 is the pdf’s page 41, everything before is numbered with roman numerals :)

        I also wasn’t expecting anyone to try and read with a browser or reader that doesn’t show the current page number

      • StellarSt0rm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 hours ago

        I dont know if you use firefox on your phone, but i do, and i fucking hate it that i cant jump to a page or see the page number im on.

        • SalmiakDragon@feddit.nuEnglish
          1·
          11 hours ago

          That is what I’m using. I don’t really read enough pdf:s to notice it normally, but I guess it’s another reason to get off my ass about switching browsers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • ThanksForAllTheFish@sh.itjust.works
      52·
      14 hours ago

      The biggest flaw with cars is when they crash. When I crash my car due to user error, because I made a small mistake, this proves that cars are dangerous. Some other vehicles like planes get around this by only allowing trusted users to do dangerous actions, why can’t cars be more like planes? /s

      Always backup important data, always have the ability to restore your backups. If rm doesn’t get it, ransomware or a bad/old drive will.

      A sysadmin deleting /bin is annoying, but it shouldn’t take them more than a few mins to get a fresh copy from a backup or a donor machine. Or to just be more careful instead.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
        1·
        8 hours ago

        Unix aficionados accept occasional file deletion as normal. For example, consider following excerpt from the comp.unix.questions FAQ:
        6) How do I “undelete” a file?
        Someday, you are going to accidentally type something like:
        % rm * .foo
        and find you just deleted “*” instead of “*.foo”. Consider it a rite of passage.
        Of course, any decent systems administrator should be doing regular backups. Check with your sysadmin to see if a recent backup copy of your file is available

        “A rite of passage”? In no other industry could a manufacturer take such a cavalier attitude toward a faulty product. “But your honor, the exploding gas tank was just a rite of passage.”

        There’s a reason sane programs ask for confirmation for potentially dangerous commands