this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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I wouldn’t mind replacing ‘kill’ with some variant of send/signal, sure that’s what kill does.
Sure, just break millions of other people's scripts on a whim.
That's a false choice. And kind of silly. If you read the article, Linux has already changed commands somehow without blowing up everyone's scripts.
The article is about an internal kernel API: They can easily rename those, since they are not exposed to user-space.
But you seem to be talking about the
killcommand and/or thekillfunction, that are part of the POSIX and C standards, respectively. Renaming either would break a shit-ton of code, unless you merely aliased them. And while I agree thatkillis a poor name, adding non-standard aliases doesn't really offer much benefitIt does lead to some interesting sentences when combined with other kernel terms:
end?
That one does what it says, says what it does, is short to type, and doesn’t psychologically reinforce any negative stereotypes.