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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu
From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Symbolic Links
Message-ID: <9065@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 30-Aug-87 17:24:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-adm.9065
Posted: Sun Aug 30 17:24:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Aug-87 23:47:55 EDT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
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Although putting the smarts in the shell can be handy for some (I
personally -like- the way symlinks work now, I use them all the time
as short-cuts to working areas, 'cd /usr/local/emacs' is a guaranteed
jump to the GNU emacs source area, de gustibus non disputendum) one
anecdotal problem with shell magic is exemplified by the following
"bug" I get from a user every few weeks:

	fp = fopen("~user/somefile","r");

how come it don't work...oh...that's stupid...

I can assume that putting symlink magic into the shell only will
win me another line of confused students (how come chdir()...?)

Swell...but I think it's arrogant to declare one thing more or less
confusing than the other to "them" (perhaps it's all confusing.)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University