Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!gnu!dstailey
From: dstailey@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Doug Stailey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: RFS vs. NFS (turned into "//" (super-root) discussion)
Summary: standards are against it too!
Keywords: POSIX Domain OS super-root-rot
Message-ID: <1990Sep1.181027.20989@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 1 Sep 90 18:10:27 GMT
References: <1940@cybaswan.UUCP> <:4C5FLA@xds13.ferranti.com> <1990Aug21.183615.8315@ico.isc.com>
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 26

In article <1990Aug21.183615.8315@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) mentions:
>> For a third choice, Intel's OpenNET software...
>> ...Instead a super-root, "//", is created. To access
>> files on a remote system, you access "//sysname/usr/bin..."...
>
>Ugh!  This isn't the first time I've seen this trick, but it's still a bad
>idea.  I wish all the clever developers who decided, "Yeah, we can just use
>a double / for that!" had been experienced with UNIX before they inflicted
>their bright ideas on us.  Using // as magic *breaks* things.  Historically,
>extra /'s are ignored in file names.  People use this fact.
>[...deleted stuff...]
>(Don't bother telling me of the various ways to avoid the problem; I know.
>Nor preach to me about standards; I'm talking about existing practice:-)
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

POSIX says that multiple slashes collapse into one slash, so standards
are on your side too.  Apollo's Domain OS is the first place that I
saw the "//" stuff.  They want to be POSIX complient, so they recently
changed one of their rules to say that more that two slashes will
collapse.  But I want to see this go away completely.  I think that
Sun's "automounter" is a much better approach.  It accomplishes the
same stuff that the super-root does and it doesn't break existing
code.
--
Oops, I seem to have misplaced my .signature...