Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hao!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!bsu-cs!jdh
From: jdh@bsu-cs.UUCP (John Hiday)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Sys:System vs. System:
Message-ID: <2200@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 24 Feb 88 01:51:49 GMT
References: <7025@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <3343@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: jdh@bsu-cs.UUCP (John Hiday)
Organization: Ball State University UCS, Muncie, IN
Lines: 27
Summary: Fixing logical name conflicts

In article <3343@cbmvax.UUCP> andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) writes:
>[...]
>Well, one more logical name wouldn't be too bad.  Of course, you
>could no longer name a disk (or volume) System.  But where to stop ?
>That's the question.

Why not put a special character in all system defined logical names
to help avoid such conflicts with commonly chosen names?  For example
instead of FONTS: make it something like $FONTS:.  Of course for
backwards compatibilty the old definitions would have to be doubly
defined (both with and without the special character), but all new
logical names could follow the new convention.

I don't really think that we can expect to see the number of standard
logical names decrease or even stay the same.  Something has to be done
about possible conflicts.  Such problems can really confuse the hell
out of an inexperienced user.

While I'm on the subject, I would like to add my name to the list of
people who have requested some form of late-binding logical names.
Maybe the need for these will decrease if and when environment variables
are officially supported, but they still have their uses at times.


-- 
== John Hiday                UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!jdh
== Ball State University / University Computing Services        GEnie: JDHIDAY
== Muncie, IN 47306