Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sugar!karl
From: karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AmigaDos vs Unix wildcards/pathnames
Message-ID: <3645@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Date: 19 Mar 89 15:26:51 GMT
References: <352@sagpd1.UUCP> <6294@cbmvax.UUCP> <11242@ut-emx.UUCP> <45@xenlink.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston
Lines: 56

Various people write about AmigaDos vs. Unix wildcard/pathnames.

I find my development cycle on the Amiga to be essentially identical to that
on Unix.  This is the vi-make-test cycle...with a little 'sdb' thrown in on
the side.

...and incidentally, 'sdb' on the Amiga is largely superior to sdb on Unix.

Most Unix users do not yet have a multiwindowed environment like the one we 
Amiga users take for granted.  Although you can "bang out" from many Unix
utilities and you can kick tasks off in the background, windows are far
superior to such things.  (It is arguable that there are certain advantages
to job control, but if the choice was mutually exclusive, I'd take windows 
over job control any day.)

On the user side, the Amiga's icon-oriented environment is much more intuitive
than X-Windows; most Unix people don't have an icon-oriented environment at
all.  

While experts have little use for them, I think it is undeniable that
icon-oriented programs are easier to use when one uses them rarely or is
trying to figure them out without a manual, like we all are inclined to do.
Also, try using a command-line-oriented paint program, if you can find one -- 
there are some applications that simply require the icon-oriented, 
event-driven model.

Note also that there is no emerging Unix windowing and icon-oriented user
interface standard.  IBM and DEC have succesfully fractured Unix with this
coup.  Hell, IBM has even said they're not necessarily committed to whatever
user interface OSF comes up with -- they've cut their own deal with Steven
Jobs for NextStep.

We have a standard environment now, have had for years, and will continue to
have it while the Unix community suffers the giant shudders and heaves along
the way to sorting this out.

The Amiga exec is realtime.  There is no standard realtime Unix.  That's pretty
important for games, sequencers, etc.

I do like the way the Unix shells expand wildcards.  I think the answer on
the Amiga is to write a new _main that expands wildcards.  This can be
done without modifying the shell or the CLI and it maintains compatibility
with older programs.  Also, you don't have to convince Commodore that it's
the way to go to do it, plus it solves the problem with the only expenses being 
that you link in a small number of hundreds of bytes of code that you wouldn't
need in a perfect world and that older programs that don't expand wildcards
still wouldn't expand wildcards.

Command environments are mainly for developers.  The Amiga command environment
is not that bad.  It's too late to change the file system naming conventions.
The Amiga does a whole lot of things most Unix systems do not do.  Commodore
is going to sell a million Amigas this year.  'Nuff said.
-- 
-- uunet!sugar!karl  | "Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so."
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