Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac Interface v. "Command Line" interface debates
Message-ID: <6167@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 5 Jan 89 12:02:19 GMT
References: <15213@mimsy.UUCP> <958@esquire.UUCP> <874@lts.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 21

In article <874@lts.UUCP> amanda@lts.UUCP (Amanda Walker) writes:
>In fact, most UNIXoid preprocessors and filters should port
>to MPW pretty quickly, since MPW tools sit in an environment that looks
>awfully close to UNIX...

Probably true of filters and preprocessors, but I must take issue with
the idea that MPW Shell is close to UNIX.  No prompt based program runs
correctly under MPW Shell because no distinction is made between input
and output text.  If you put out a prompt and wait for a command after
it, then when the user hits Enter, you will be given the whole text
line, including the prompt.  The existing software doesn't know to
throw the prompt away, and so it will give an unrecognized command
error (or worse, interpret the prompt erroneously as a real command and
do something not predicted).  The MPW Shell is nothing like a UNIX
emulator.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
 and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
 feature.  They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
    -- Thomas Jefferson