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From: kim@uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Pipes
Message-ID: <5aBo02FSad0201@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 7 Jun 90 05:44:33 GMT
References: <2533@zipeecs.umich.edu> <136735@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Jun6.104643.15176@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Organization: Amdahl Corporation,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Lines: 71

In article <1990Jun6.104643.15176@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
> In article <136735@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@stpeter.Eng.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes:
> >In article <2533@zipeecs.umich.edu> (Ralph Seguin) writes:
> >>Anybody got any idea when C= is going to get around to writing true pipes
> >
> >You wouldn't happen to be confusing pipes with the bit of syntactic
> >sugar (the vertical bar) that the UNIX shells offer would you? If
> 
> Bzzzzt!   Wrong answer Chuck.
> 
> From a user's viewpoint (You do remember users?  They pay the bills.), the
> difference is far more than syntactic sugar.  The difference is information
> overload and confusion.

[ much deleted, all of which I agree with 100% ... good summation, Kent! ]


> Looking at the Amiga implementation, like looking at the choice of "#?" for
> the wildcard (that I for one use on over half my typed lines), rather than
> the single keystroke "*", brings to mind the same question:  "Why did the
> Amiga developers go to the time, trouble, and expense  to design and
> implement something poorly, when an example of how to do it much better was
> conveniently at hand?"
> 
> If "not invented here" is that strong a paradigm of software development,
> perhaps it is high time for a paradigm shift.

No, it wasn't that at all.  In fact, originally CAOS was to have had a very
csh-like shell.  There ended up being some, um, shall we say "differences of
opinion" on compensation and such between C-A, and the two (?) individuals
that were to provide what is technically called AmigaDOS (as opposed to the
complete AmigaOS), i.e., the CLI/shell, filesystem, and such.  Basically, they
picked up their cookies and left.

Being in somewhat of a bind, C-A cast about for a replacement they could get
in short order.  Unfortunately (IMO), they found Dr. Tim King and his infamous
TriPOS (nee TripeOS, :-) ).  Which is why we have "#?", BCPL, and all the
pain and agony that decision has cost over the years (not to mention all the
effort that has been spent getting around the problems thus created by writing
alternative shells, commands, etc).

On the other hand, if it had not been for Tim/Metacomco/TriPOS, the Amiga might
never have made it to the marketplace ...

Of course that set the stage and defined the "official" interface, which we
still have to live with, even though 2.0 has supposedly exorcised all the BCPL
out of the system.  Fortunately, there are decent alternative shells, such as
SKsh, Wshell, and the Dillon/et-al shell.

As to what ever happened to CAOS ... I've heard tell that it is still locked
away in some deep, dark vault in West Chester (or possibly Los Gatos ?).  I
believe there was a lawsuit pending between the "interested parties", but 
never did hear of any resolution of it.  Anyone who knows willing to talk?


One related question I've asked several times, but still have not seen an
answer to ... under 2.0, can command lines longer than ~255 chars be passed
to Exec() ... or must file handling programs still be "builtin" to a shell, or
do their own wildcard expansion if not, in order to handle directories with
moderately a large number of files in it?  Could someone at CBM who knows,
please comment?  Andy?  Randell?


/kim

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