🚀 go-pugleaf

I will try to respond to Ajay's comments and the problems which he has
encountered.

In article <27731@usc> ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>	profile.ksh (the autoexec of the MKS shell) fires a strange
>	batch file called msdosstart.bat.  
			  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's an amazingly long name on a msdos filesystem :-)

>	This chap uses the
>	386-max programs maxhi and maxlo to load a large sidekick
>	into high memory.  The reason this is done using a MS-DOS
>	batch file is that it leaves me more memory for the SK
>	notepad (i can explain further over email).

It is typical to run a command.com batch file from the Korn Shell to
load programmes that require command.com.  However, most problems
usually stem from programmes that cannot parse pathnames that have `/'
in them so sometimes it is possible to invoke these programmes using the
full pathname using `\' from the Korn Shell and still avoid using
command.com.

	i.e.  c:\\wp\\wp.exe (double backslashes like in C)
	or    'c:\wp\wp.exe' (use single quotes)

>Goods:
[comments deleted]

Thanks for the good comments.  Now I will try to address the "Bads".

>Bads:

Note that I do not want to start a flame war about favourite shells.

>	- the shell commandline editing mechanism is terrible,

If you are used to VMS, OS/2 or DOS command-line editors then this is
true for you, but if one's fingers are already accustomed to vi or emacs 
editing commands then it is great :-)

>	- Kornshell is inferior to cshell, IMHO, in many ways,

That's each person's opinion, like you said, but I certainly prefer the
Korn Shell over the Bourne (sh), C (csh) or bourne again (bash) shells.

>	- it takes a while to move mindsets.  Also, running DOS
>	programs from MKS Shell is sometimes downright irritating.
>	I sometimes fire a command.com for the purpose :-(

Sometimes, you need to use command.com, but there may be workarounds.
Please contact toolkit@mks.com with your problems and MKS will try to
solve them.

>	- there are more bugs than I'd have expected from a
>	commercial package.

By all means, please report them to MKS so that they can be fixed.

>	- the documentation is good but not great.

If you have some suggestions then I would appreciate receiving them.
MKS is always on the lookout for good suggestions.

>Bugs I found:
>	- If you exceed the size of the commandline he can deal
>	with (max = 8192 instead of microsoft's 128), he hangs.  In
>	my /bin which has a huge number of progams, ls *.exe hangs
>	him.

You may be encountering some unusual interaction between some
programmes because I cannot duplicate this behaviour.  I get
the error message ``Argument list too long''.  Try the same command
after booting a ``clean'' machine with no device drivers or TSRs
loaded and starting `sh' from the command.com command-line.

>	- I tried on tar-compress-uncompress on a large file system
>	and the uncompressed version was different from the
>	original.  It worked correctly on a few other files, but I
>	can't use it with peace of mind anymore..

Do you have a sample file which will exhibit this problem?  I have
compressed and uncompressed large files (35 Mbytes) without problems.

>	- A few other minor shell+/bin bugs.

I suggest that you send e-mail directly to toolkit@mks.com so that technical
support can attempt to solve the problems which you are encountering.  It is
important to MKS that we provide good tools for programmers (especially 
since we use them too).
-- 
Andy Toy, Mortice Kern Systems Inc.,       Internet: andy@mks.com
  35 King Street North, Waterloo,       UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!andy
      Ontario, CANADA N2J 2W9      Phone: 519-884-2251  FAX: 519-884-8861