Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Followup - Symbolic links are a botch Message-ID: <6016@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Tue, 23-Jun-87 14:51:26 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6016 Posted: Tue Jun 23 14:51:26 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jun-87 05:47:35 EDT References: <7956@brl-adm.ARPA> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 36 In article <7956@brl-adm.ARPA> rbj@icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim) writes: > About 50% of the respondents agreed with me completely. Another 30% >The best way to do something wrong is to take a poll (especially if >it includes naive users) and implement the result. The point of the poll was to garner sufficient "public" support to get the internal AT&T decision makers to seriously consider Korn's proposal. I'm sure Korn was not relying on the poll to help him determine the TECHNICAL viability of his proposal, but rather the POLITICAL viability. > 2. The directory of .. must be independent of the way you got there. > Note that this has already been broken by > a. Remote mounts in RFS >Please explain. I hope that you are not using RFS's (possible) botches >to justify botching something else. BTW, NFS seems to work correctly. Cottrell, if you don't know what you're talking about then shut up. RFS is doing exactly the right thing in this case. BTW, NFS is hardly a model for "correct" semantics for UNIX file systems! >Good point. However, before you guys tackle something complex like >symbolic links, perhaps you had better finish the job on regular file >systems and implement `mkdir', `rmdir', and `rename' as system calls Mkdir & rmdir ARE system calls in the current version of UNIX. It is not especially advantageous to do this for ordinary file systems, but it certainly is for a distributed file system. Rename is more difficult and less urgent, but it too will probably move into the kernel soon. Your patronizing tone is totally inappropriate. I know several AT&T software developers (including Korn) who can run rings around you. Their biggest problem lies in the bureaucracy that lies between their prototypes and the official released product. To some degree this does make for higher quality (virtually every recent new feature in UNIX System V has had an improved design over the original prototype), but it does delay or even discourage the appearance of new features.