You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars. You can't even think about them!
This does not mean that some of us should not want, in a rather dispassionate sort of way, to put a bullet through csh's head.
Many days I don't write any code at all, and some days I spend all day writing code.
Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity.
It's hard to tune heavily tuned code.
There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.