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Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

I always found it fascinating the grade-A executable names which imagemagick was able to claim in the global namespace:

    imagemagick /usr/bin/animate
    imagemagick /usr/bin/compare
    imagemagick /usr/bin/composite
    imagemagick /usr/bin/conjure
    imagemagick /usr/bin/convert
    imagemagick /usr/bin/display
    imagemagick /usr/bin/identify
    imagemagick /usr/bin/import
    imagemagick /usr/bin/mogrify
    imagemagick /usr/bin/montage
    imagemagick /usr/bin/stream

View on HN

Thankfully as of v7 these are all bundled under a single "magick" command (with symlinks for compatibility). Hopefully in the future these can be removed

tbf this sounds like a problem that doesn't need to be fixed... Ironically this would introduce problems where many scripts sort of assume the binaries have the names they have.

Scripts written for version 6 or older are probably going to have problems with version 8 or later anyways as that's what the major version number is there to represent.

import is the most fun, when you forgot the `#!/usr/bin/env python` at the start of the script and of course the first instruction is import and you get an ImageMagik error

They are pretty common verbs, but they give 0 context to the user on what they do. I don't think these names are in any demand -- there's always a better name than "import" for your command line utility.

Sounds like you want PowerShell style naming :)

With good autocomplete, I wouldn't mind it!

I was honestly thinking of stuff like `du` (disk usage), `cp`, `mv`, and the like. Like I sort of mnemonically remember them, compared to mentally mapping `convert` -> imagemagick.

This sentiment directly contradicts your post above...

I'm making a distinction between mnemonic names (du = disk usage) and just vague names (convert = ???).

This is something I always preferred about the graphicsmagick fork, was the `gm` base command.

I came here to say the same thing

No self-respecting Unix tool would use such long names, so that's why they were free. "compare" vs "cmp", etc.

Image magick isn't something you use frequently and quickly like changing directories or moving a file. A longer more descriptive name is better here. Also easier to speak. Telling someone to write "compare" is easier than "C-M-P"

The reason the common commands were short was because typing on the keys for old terminals was a pain in general, and thus they are short for historical reasons. It is however an accident of history that them being shorter now makes it more convenient...if you have the names memorized.

I was trying to make a joke about the infamous naming practices of Unix, an operating system with a call named “creat”.

My favorite is "ioctl", which is especially delightful when pronounced phoenetically

A regrettable state that will hopefully be fixed someday.

Spell create with an 'e'. - Ken Thompson (referring to design regrets on the UNIX creat(2) system call and the fallacy of premature optimization)

.. via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup

If executable names were traded like internet domains, imagine what they'd be worth now.

I tried to convert those units but all I got was an imagemagick error

Image magick has been around for a pretty long time, and was doing image processing on linux before most had considered it.

ImageMagick was developed by John Cristy at DuPont in 1987 and release in 1990. Your statement is not only false, even it it wasn't, mentioning Linux in relation to ImageMagick is a non-sequitor. Maybe you should try other things.

Your point would have been much better if you had stopped after the first sentence.

Im really not sure what you are getting at?

I didn't say it was developed on/for Linux.

But because it was a mature product and added to Linux very early on, this is why it was able to get the names that it did.

so maybe you can share what it is you are responding to?

> Im really not sure what you are getting at?

To be quite clear, in the context of ImageMagick, claiming early Linux image processing with ImageMagick is irrelevant, also, not exactly true. What much does alleged Linux inclusion of any application (/usr/local/*) whatsoever have to do with that application? You're apparently promoting Linux by claiming it's a feat few had considered, or otherwise saying "I am cool," which is fine I guess and I don't doubt it, but also irrelevant.

As I pointed out, ImageMagick was developed in 1987, and I should have gone on to specify that most digital image manipulation techniques were developed in the 1960's. So assuming your Yggdrasil installation was processing images with it in early 1993, that it was "before most had considered it" is hardly knowable. I'm reading it similarly to saying your Chevy wipers were wiping your windshield before most had considered it when modern wipers were invented 50 years ago and all the techniques for doing so were worked out around the turn of the century. Chevy's are great and all, but there are other things.

> claiming early Linux image processing with ImageMagick is irrelevant

It is at relevant, because this is about why imageMagick has such prime namespace on linux.

I don't have any idea why you are going in these seeming random directions, I'm not promoting linux, or whatever else your going on about.

This is my original statement

> Image magick has been around for a pretty long time, and was doing image processing on linux before most had considered it.

Surely we can both agree part below is a fair and accurate statement

> Image magick has been around for a pretty long time

This next part, is the part that seemingly needs clarification

> and was doing image processing on linux before most had considered it.

When imagemagick was added to linux in the mid 90s (near ImageMagick 4) not a lot of people were doing image processing in the OS. and being that it was the first mature image processor added to the distro, it is why it has the namespaces it does.

I'm not sure how you are either not getting that clarifier of "on linux" and seem to be trying to debate something about the history of image processing itself?

To be very clear, and to hopefully prevent this continued necro'ing of this post, I was not, talking about this history of image processing, but the specific linux namespace that imagemagick has, and why it has it.

Any other points of debate about this are irrelevant.

Thank you for explaining. I think I see now your observation is that ImageMagick was doing image processing on Linux before most had considered doing image processing on Linux. If so, then I am forced to concede this point. Although I think it is still fair to say, with a market share even now only barely breaching 2%, that most, in fact nearly all, have not considered doing anything at all on Linux since inception and likely not even five or ten years from now. This means those intrepid Linux+ImageMagick users processing images in the mid-1990's are that much more notable as those lucky few doing stuff with Linux before most had considered it, but also that those getting directory listings in Linux right this moment are also somewhat intrepid because most, maybe as much as 97.1%, had never considered even doing anything like that on Linux. I wonder what else most have not even considered doing on Linux. I expect nearly everything.

the latest versions recommend that you use magick convert instead of just convert. I'm assuming because the globals are going away.

"convert" always gave me trouble on Windows with some existing tools that used Windows' built in "convert" tool. It was an edge case, but always entertaining when the tool needed to convert a filesystem or some tool I wrote wanted to convert an image, and got the wrong executable.

I totally agree and also had found it fascinating, except for...mogrify? I don't think I've ever heard that word before, and I don't even know what it could mean based on the only related word I can think of, "transmogrify".

This looks like useful output, what distro and command did you use to list this?

Arch Linux.

    $ pacman -Ql imagemagick | grep bin
    imagemagick /usr/bin/
    imagemagick /usr/bin/Magick++-config
    imagemagick /usr/bin/MagickCore-config
    imagemagick /usr/bin/MagickWand-config
    imagemagick /usr/bin/animate
    imagemagick /usr/bin/compare
    ....