On Oct 28, 2014, at 8:11 PM, Alex Berry wrote:

> And that is why alias rm='rm -I' was invented.


Do not *ever* set this to be a default for new users.

During my undergrad, I worked at helpdesk for the group that managed the computer labs, the general use unix & cms systems (not content management system ... an IBM mainframe ... one of the last bitnet-to-internet gateways).

The engineering school set up a bunch of default aliases for their systems... including "rm='rm -i'".

This meant that when people came to *our* servers ... they'd decide to interactively clean out their home directory by typing:

	rm *

... and then wonder why it didn't prompt them.

... and then come to the computer lab to complain.  

... and then complain some more when we wouldn't immediately restore their files for them.  (our policy was technically disaster recovery only, but it was effectively disaster recovery, upper level management, or members of the faculty senate ... because restores from tape really, really sucked.)

-Joe