Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Hard links, necessary evil?
Message-ID: <1991May15.165958.22050@kithrup.COM>
Date: 15 May 91 16:59:58 GMT
References: <53680@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Lines: 22

In article <53680@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes:
>I've been trying to figure out what hard links are good for.  I

You came up with a short list of useful things, missed all the obvious
points that links are good for, and think they're *evil*?

How about this:  "." and ".." (at least until recent versions) were *not*
special.  The only thing special about them was that mkdir(2,1) would put
them in there.  Because they were just links to the appropriate places, you
could either change them around, if you wanted to, or keep them their, or
even come up with your own scheme (say, "..." is ../..).

And, oh yeah:  symlinks take up disk space.  Links only take up space in a
directory.

Why am I not surprised to see such foolishness from you?

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.