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From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Wild Cards, file syntax
Message-ID: <2242@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 19 Feb 89 09:40:30 GMT
Sender: root@van-bc.UUCP
Lines: 51

[much discussion about Unix vs. Amiga wildcards]

In <805@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes:
 >So why should the Amiga be the only one different?  Yes, it is an easy
 >translation, but can't you think of a few more important bits of information
 >to stash away in your long-term memory?  I'd think that using a convention
 >which already exists, and which people are accustomed to, is a good
 >marketing strategy.  (Sorry :-)

  This can be a good idea. However, should this thinking have taken place
during the design phase of Amigados, we might have been saddled with an even
more popular convention, that used by MsDos. Imagine that, and count your
blessings.

 >From the WShell manual:
 >	The full search heirarchy followed by WShell is
 >	* The Previous Command
 >	* Resident Commands
 >	* Built-in Commands
 >	* REXX-Language Macro Programs
 >	* An Implicit Directory
 > -->	* The Current directory
 >	* The Local Path Directories
 >	* The Global Path Directories.
 >I won't argue the use of the word "usually".  Shall we agree that there
 >are many situations where having an equivalent for "./file" is important?

  Shall we agree that shells are not necessarily Amigados in their conventions?
There is nothing to stop a shell from having any convention, whether it be
Amigados, Unix, MsDos, or even <shudder> IBM's JCL.

  It has been pointed out to me via mail that the resident commands are
searched first. To this I answer that obviously the resident facility was added
without consideration of the fundamental Amigados convention of searching the
current directory first.

  I work on Unix during the day, and the Amiga at all other times, and find no
inherent superiority in either one, save for minor conveniences in each. They
are just different is all, and if you don't like the way one or the other does
something, well, that's what shells and script files are for.

-larry

--
Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on
                  the roof and gets stuck.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                |
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