Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!limonce From: limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: filesystem links (was: yet another 1.4 request) Message-ID: Date: 1 Jul 89 17:49:16 GMT References: <8906300334.AA12228@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> <42236@bbn.COM> Organization: Drew University/NJIN Lines: 40 Ring! Ring! Hello, I'd like to make an observation? In article <42236@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: [much deleted] > ...... Although I admit *many* otherwise > pretty sharp folk seem to be almost-completely baffled by how hard links work > (that they are not, really, 'links' in the same sense that a softlink is a > link). What's interesting (to me at least) is that the confusion usually > results in folks thinking: [ two examples of how users often get confused by the existance of more than one kind of link ] If hardlinks and softlinks are both needed, but their semantics are difficult to remember by most people, then wouldn't it be a good place for one command to do both but let the computer decide which to use? That way it is transparent, but the proper one is used*. Any program that has to deal with links just knows that there are two cases it must be ready to deal with. Basically, this abstracts the two needs into one concept. It also follows the laws "let the computer decide what it can decide better than the user" and "similar things should be dealt with similarly". But, there is no clean way to implement one kind of link. So maybe it should be left as "unimplemented" but structure the commands around the fact that it could be added at any moment. Of course, for all we know that code has been frozen and the way it will be in 1.4 is the way it will be. Tom Footnote * -- Of course, in Unix everyone wants to be closer to the machine so it's two different things. Since AmigaDOS is supposed to be friendlier this "all-in-1" concept fits a little better there. ...and of course, there could be override flags on the commands. -- Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net Drew University -- Box 1060, Madison, NJ -- 201-408-5389 Standard Disclaimer: I am not the mouth-piece of Drew University