Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: #! (was Re: file attributes)
Message-ID: <8570@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 26 Jun 91 17:41:21 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.191521.12644@sco.COM> <8509@auspex.auspex.com> <1991Jun25.192743.8968@sco.COM>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 19

>Actually, if I were about to change the semantics of a prominent UNIX
>call, I would probably have given it a new name,

The whole *point* of the change was to make it *transparent* to existing
programs!

If you decide they're different calls and give them different names, all
the programs out there that use the old calls won't be able to run
scripts.  I don't *want* to have to change every single program that
calls one of the exec-family routines just so that it can automatically
run shell/awk/perl/whatever scripts.

>You could also get rid of the ugly hard-coded limits that
>are in kern_exec.c;

E.g., the 1MB hard-coded limit on number of characters passed as
arguments to a program? :-)  (Yes, there *are* systems with limits that
large.  I hope I don't have to spend very much time ever again on
systems with tiny limits such as 20480 characters....)