Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!abrodnik
From: abrodnik@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Andrej Brodnik (Andy))
Subject: Re: Two question on Elm
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.235404.12524@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991Feb11.021555.10503@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1846@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 1991 23:54:04 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <1846@chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>In article <1991Feb11.021555.10503@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
>	abrodnik@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Andrej Brodnik (Andy)) writes:
>>Does there exist a possibility to do saving in folder "frined" in this case?
>
>	$ cd $HOME/Mail
>	$ ln ix78yom frined
>		        ^^[sic]

Hm, not very useful. Can you imagine, that when you create a new alias, you
have to make a symbolic link as well? And even more, can you imagine, that you
further distribute your alias file to some other machine, and you will have to
make the symbolic links there as well?

I think, that the only real solution for this problem is to make Elm more
consistant with aliases. What I want to say is that currently aliases in Elm
are only given as a help and not as its real part. Namely when you define an
alias (or give a name to any thing or person), from that moment that person is
known _only_ through this new name. So when you would say "friend"  (or
frined:-) it is friend and not that funny name there. And so everything what
depends on his name should depend on "friend". Am I right? Is this possible to
do in Elm? Did somebody have any similar idea already?

Regards

Andrej

PS: The next step would be something on the level of Unix (similar to VMS),
where a certain alias would have the same meaning anywhere.