Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!indri!lll-winken!uunet!algor2!jeffrey
From: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Unix deficiencies/problems
Message-ID: <424@algor2.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 89 23:02:39 GMT
References: <810038@hpsemc.HP.COM> <810046@hpsemc.HP.COM> <159@dg.dg.com>
Reply-To: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler)
Organization: Algorists, Inc., Reston VA
Lines: 24

In article <810046@hpsemc.HP.COM> gph@hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) writes:
>gph@hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) / 10:37 am  Apr 18, 1989 /
>
>I wrote:
>   I am interested in peoples opinions of deficiencies or problems with 
>unix.  . . .  

I miss very little from the IBM world, but the availability of formal file
names is one of them.  Once UNIX starts getting into commercial
environments they will become more useful.  Briefly, a formal file name is
a name by which the program interfaces with a  JCL (or shell) language and
which can be redefined.  UNIX has 3 usable ones, stdin, stdout and stderr,
and that covers a remarkable variety of situations.  But an application
might well want one or two databases, an transaction input file, an error
output, a logging file and 2 or 3 reports.  It would be nice if each of
these could be redirected as easily as stdin, stdout and stderr.

Of course, your programs could always look for environment variables, and if
present, attempt to open their value as a file.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists,
jeffrey@algor2.UU.NET or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090