On Mon, 13 Sep 1993 14:14:51 -0700 [log in to unmask] said:
 
>Actually,  if you're  listening out  there,  Eric, this  is something  I
>wouldn't  mind seeing  changed in  a future  release. To  me, it  always
>seemed like the requirement of *@*  was confusing, and I've had to coach
>others through it.
 
Under MS-DOS, you have to do *.* to affect all files. Under VMS, you have
to do *.* and possibly *.*;* while under VM it's * * or * * *, and so on.
The point  is that  there is  a convention,  it is  arbitrary, it  can be
confusing  the first  time, and  no  matter what  you choose  it will  be
confusing to  some and intuitive  to others. The only  thing to do  is to
learn the convention.  If you change it, you'll just  be changing the set
of people  to whom it  is confusing, and making  all the people  who were
used to the old convention very  angry, not to mention the possibility of
screwing  up an  entire list  because you  thought *  = all  users on  my
system.
 
  Eric