Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:6320 comp.arch:3268
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!labrea!russell!gandalf
From: gandalf@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Juergen Wagner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (From BYTE)
Message-ID: <1897@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 22 Jan 88 23:48:38 GMT
References: <1495@osiris.UUCP: <2126@haddock.ISC.COM> <1497@osiris.UUCP> <3470@umix.cc.umich.edu> <2154@geac.UUCP>
Reply-To: gandalf@russell.stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner)
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 20

Conditional symbolic links would be not as bad as some people think
they are. With NFS, you can have file systems shared among different
architectures (VAX, Sun, ...). This inherits the problem of binaries
being incompatible between systems. If a user logs in to host A (which
is, say, a VAX/8700), and he/she writes some general programs, the
same user will be in big trouble if he/she logs in to host B (which
might be a Sun3). Of course, in this case, the search path could be
setup such that it points to the correct binary directories (that's
what I am doing now), but there is still a problem with
machine-dependent Makefiles, data files (e.g. fonts), etc. So, as a
conclusion, symbolic links conditional upon the architecture of the
actual machine one is using could be very helpful.

Juergen Wagner,			        gandalf@Russell.Stanford.edu
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford CA

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of my cat.
-- 
Juergen Wagner,			        gandalf@Russell.Stanford.edu
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford CA