Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!lsr From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Why aren't 7.0 aliases real? Message-ID: <12975@goofy.Apple.COM> Date: 9 Apr 91 16:32:30 GMT References: <1991Apr8.174933.10818@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Apr8.215943.6159@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 29 In article <1991Apr8.215943.6159@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes: >None of those things is unreasonable, and all of them could be accomplished >if the "*open*" traps resolved aliases for the programmer. You are right that none of these things seem unreasonable. But there are other issues with automatically resolving aliases. For every case where you want your backup program to resolve aliases, there would be cases where you didn't want this because you would end up backing up the same file twice. (I keep aliases to applications for convenience, so backing up an app twice would be a large expense.) Resolving an alias can require mounting a file server, which may involve asking for a password. This could impact when and _Open call would be legal. >If this was a technical decision, taken because the other direction would >have caused too many problems, I can understand. If it was the result of I think that's the case. There are a lot of cases where it might make sense to automatically resolve aliases, but I think you would also find a lot of problems arising if you started to do that. -- Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. lsr@apple.com (or AppleLink: Rosenstein1)