If you mistakenly type "ddate" instead of "date", you get a ridiculous-looking date that looks like some sort of April Fools joke instead of something one would expect to find in a serious package like util-linux. I think this "utility" can be deleted outright, but if for some reason somebody wants to keep it, please move it to a new or different package - just like we have the incredibly "useful" utilities "pig" and "bcd" :-) How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. ddate 2. 3. Actual results: Today is Pungenday, the 26th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3177 Expected results: zsh: command not found: ddate
I of course meant that "pig" and "bcd" are in a separate "bsd-games" package, not util-linux.
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-August/156159.html
Please revert this change. This was not a bug. The proper solution for this user is to take a look at the screen before hitting the enter key to make sure the command he is about to run is the command he intends to run, not to remove functionality and break util-linux for the people who use this command.
Josh, is anyone actually using this command? (deliberately). ddate has no business being in the util-linux package. The description of the package says that "The util-linux package contains a large variety of low-level system utilities that are necessary for a Linux system to function.". While this description isn't exactly accurate, ddate couldn't be more far from this description. It is NOT low-level, NOT a system utility, and NOT necessary. If you want, how about a new "ddate" package, with just ddate, for the few who actually want this strange utility?
Yes. I use it every day, and I know several others who also use it. I have scripts that rely on it. I agree that the ddate utility doesn't meet the description of the util-linux package, but it has been there since the beginning and its presence doesn't cause any problems, so I think it would be better to leave well enough alone. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to have all the overhead of a standalone package for something that's like 8k including the man page. Here's a thread from about 10 years ago, where someone filed this exact same bug, with the reasoning as to why it was closed as "WONTFIX": http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=149321
Can you please educate me (and whomever else reads this thread) what exactly is "ddate" used for and who uses it? Is Discordianism, a religion which (according to Wikipedia) was invented in 1959 by two guys with "hallucinations at a bowling alley", a real religion? How many adherents does it have worldwide? What does it use its calendar for? Note that util-linux also doesn't include utilities for special calendars of other more established religions, like the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Julian calendar (still in use for some Christian sects) or other esoteric calendars like the Maya calendar, the zodiac, the French revolutionary calendar, and so on. Is there any interesting reason why it needs to have only the Discordian calendar? Is there any interesting reason why it needs to be called "ddate", an annoying typo away from "date"?
I don't know the history of why ddate was named as it is or how it got to be packaged in util-linux. Like I said, I agree with you that util-linux seems to be a strange place for it. However, it has been this way for a really long time, at least 15 years. ddate is only 8k including the man page and and doesn't have any bugs or issues, so I don't understand the critical need to move or remove it after all this time. I have never typed ddate when I meant to type date, nor the other way around, but even if I had ever done so, I don't see how it could possibly hurt anything. I don't know how many Discordians there are world-wide, but I know the number is at least in the thousands. The Wikipedia article isn't entirely accurate. There are a lot of jokes in Discordianism, but Discordianism itself is not a joke. All the jokes have a purpose. They are jokes, but they aren't "just jokes" if you understand what I mean. The Principia Discordia is full of jokes and contradictions, but at the end it says "If you think the PRINCIPIA is just a ha-ha, then go read it again." Not all Discordians use the Discordian calendar, but those of us who do use it in the same way that Jews use the Hebrew Calendar, Muslims use the Islamic calendar, and Buddhists use the Chinese lunar calendar. I use all four of these calendars to know when various holidays are, and I would also be upset if hebcal, ical, or lunar were broken. It's true that hebcal, itools, and lunar are all standalone packages. While I think it would be overkill to create a new 40k package just to remove 8k from util-linux, it would be better than not having ddate at all.