Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: arp CD command change???
Message-ID: <35960@bbn.COM>
Date: 13 Feb 89 22:56:28 GMT
References: <8902131846.AA21527@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 45

In article <8902131846.AA21527@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
}
}:In article <1769@cveg.uucp> gmg@hcx.uucp (Greg M. Garner) writes:
}:>Would it be possible to make the arp 1.3 CD command recognize the unix
}:>directory names .. and . ?
}:
}
}:directory and "" for current directory as a leading contender for
}:the worst Amiga feature (right up there with the bizarre wildcards).
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
}
}	When I first began programming on the Amiga, I had these same
}feelings, but after using it for a while (and also using UNIX systems
}extensively for many years), I find I like the Amiga filesystem
}naming conventions better.  NOT the wildcards though (I agree with you
}there); Those are not a function of the filesystem anyway, but of the BCPL
}programs.

I agree with your comments about '.' and '..' wholeheartedly (and was
about to post a similar followup when I saw yours).  BUT.. I think
you've missed it with the wildcards.  The UNIX 'wildcard standard' is
just plain cretinous.  You might ask why UNIX files follow an
unbelivably cramped and unnatural 'extension' scheme .  The primary
answer is that because of the DUMB wildcard facility, you could not
easily pick up all of the object files if the extension was a
reasonable ".REL", or check out all the libraries if they were ".LIB"
(whereas "*.o" and "*.a" _does_ work).  It is a *real* loser that UNIX
doesn't support full regular expressions in its filename matching.
Now, if you're arguing that "#?" is common enough that it deserves some
simple (= one-char) abbreviation, I could go with that, but even
HINTING that UNIX's hopelessly limited scheme ought to be the exemplar
is misguided, IMHO.

If you wanted *my* wish for the 1.4 filesystem, I'd really like both hard-
and sym-links.  In fact, that mostly would make the '..' problem go away: you
could just do "link -s / .." in any directory you care about (or make
'makedir' be an alias to do that for you automatically, which is **ALL** that
unix does.  '.' and '..' are ***NOT*** built inot the kernel!! --- with a bit
of hackery, you can *remove* the '..' entry from a directory and everything
works just fine, except that .. out of THAT directory doesn't!).

   __
  /  )                              Bernie Cosell
 /--<  _  __  __   o _              BBN Sys & Tech, Cambridge, MA 02238
/___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_             cosell@bbn.com