Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!ncar!tank!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: setenv/putenv/unsetenv.
Message-ID: <47800015@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 27 Aug 88 15:35:00 GMT
References: <2969@zyx.ZYX.SE>
Lines: 17
Nf-ID: #R:zyx.ZYX.SE:2969:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:47800015:000:978
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Aug 27 10:35:00 1988



>Sure it's simple, but that's not the point.  The environment is something
>pretty basic.  Isn't it about time we started dealing with as many such basic
>things as possible through a layer of primitives??  It is quite surprising how
>many vendors of quite diverse operating systems are either talking about or
>actually promising POSIX compatibility, even though the underlying kernels
>don't look even vaguely like UNIX.  (VMS, OS/2, ...)  What are these people
>supposed to do?  If the primitive to set an environment variable isn't in the
>standard then you will get just the kind of problems with variant versions and
>portability troubles that the standard is supposed to prevent.
-
POSIX and similar standards are not intended as definition of a useable
system. They are intended for such purposes as allowing the government
to specify an operating system in a procurement spec without 
generating lawsuits. Real operating systems will always need lots
of extensions .