> > No.  BSD cat is already broken with -n, -v, -e, -t.
> 
> though I'd hardly say extra functionality "breaks" a program.

They were probably refering to Rob Pike's "cat -v considered harmful" paper
(a reference to Dijkstra's classic "Goto considered Harmful" paper) given
at a usenix conference in the early 80's (sorry, don't have an exact
reference).

Duncan