Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ulowell!cbmvax!andy
From: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: "No K directive" in 1.3's Execute
Message-ID: <5661@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jan 89 15:37:57 GMT
References: <1989Jan6.183818.19500@ziebmef.uucp> <10291@well.UUCP> <2497@antique.UUCP>
Reply-To: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 33

In article <2497@antique.UUCP> vax135!cjp (Charles Poirier) writes:
>It sounds like Execute is interpreting a pair of IO redirection
>commands as a single keyword substitution command, as in
>    Run <nil:> nil: whatever
>Didn't someone claim that the decision to overload < and > was
>deliberate?  Fooey.  There are lots of ugly ASCII characters you
>could've used for parameter substitution that no sane person would put
>in a filename.  Chalk up another wart.

Nope; what I stated was that the decision to *leave it the way it was*
was deliberate.  The decision was made long ago.  For 1.3 I thought
about changing it, and found that it couldn't be done in a nice manner...
if the <> became only redirection characters suddenly, what about
all those scripts that were using the <> as variable delimiters ?
It would become possible for those files to suddenly start creating
lots of funny little files where variable substitution used to take place.

So I left it alone.
(BTW, if I'd been able to make the change, I'd have leaned towards
using the { and } as the default variable delimiters...and I think that
the curly braces are among the prettiest ASCII characters.  :-)

The only character I've never seen in a filename is the /   :-)  :-)

-- 
andy finkel		{uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

"Possibly this is a new usage of the word 'compatible' with which
 I was previously unfamiliar"

Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share.
I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.