Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!navas From: navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Backup links on 2.0 Message-ID: <10046@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 7 Jan 91 13:36:22 GMT References: <40262@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <9999@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU Reply-To: navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU Lines: 56 In article mwm@fenris.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes: >In article <9999@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) writes: > > ...the links need to be invisible outside of the (filing?) system, so that > they don't break every program written. > >Yes, but - any program that asks what _type_ a file is should be told >"link" for soft links Agreed, except there are other non-"technical" reasons why this may not be feasible. Given the fact that the DOS has never been really, well, straight- forward, it's my guess that at least 90% of the software I use is written incorrectly. Fer instance, nearly every "program" I know of needs a file- selector, and as this was never provided by Cmdre, each and every program I have has a different one. How many of these can handle link-type files? So the question to mass-marketing folks (like Cmdre) is, "do we support a filetype that will be used by 10% of our market and that will break 90% of our software base?" > That's an overview of what *might* be happening -- anyone know for sure? > [I'll probably read the docs tonight out of curiosity anyway...] Never did, oh well. Didn't find it in my perusal of the DOS AutoDocs though... >You've basically got it right - though your philosophy is wrong. As >far as I know, there's no documented way to tell if a file is a link This is true (I think), and this is bad -- but the problem has non-trivial side- effects. On another thread you'll note discussion about harddrive integrity. Can you imagine the outcry if dPaint crashed whenever you looked in your /bin directory? I agree wholeheartedly that such programs are broken, but they are also prolific. >This may fail in the future, but is better >than never working now. What was that about flawed philosophies? If a program works now, and doesn't work later because it broke the rules, then that program is flawed -- this goes for programs that don't understand link types just as surely as it goes for DiskBackup copiers. The relative merits of the programs are, of course, left up to the individual consumers (that was a disclaimer... :)) >