🚀 go-pugleaf

Ring!  Ring!  Hello, I'd like to make an observation?

In article <42236@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:

[much deleted]
> ......  Although I admit *many* otherwise
> pretty sharp folk seem to be almost-completely baffled by how hard links work
> (that they are not, really, 'links' in the same sense that a softlink is a
> link).  What's interesting (to me at least) is that the confusion usually
> results in folks thinking:
[ two examples of how users often get confused by the existance of
more than one kind of link ]

If hardlinks and softlinks are both needed, but their semantics are
difficult to remember by most people, then wouldn't it be a good place
for one command to do both but let the computer decide which to use?
That way it is transparent, but the proper one is used*.  Any program
that has to deal with links just knows that there are two cases it
must be ready to deal with.  Basically, this abstracts the two needs
into one concept.  It also follows the laws "let the computer decide
what it can decide better than the user" and "similar things should be
dealt with similarly".

But, there is no clean way to implement one kind of link.  So maybe it
should be left as "unimplemented" but structure the commands around
the fact that it could be added at any moment.

Of course, for all we know that code has been frozen and the way it
will be in 1.4 is the way it will be.

Tom

Footnote *  --  Of course, in Unix everyone wants to be closer to the
machine so it's two different things.  Since AmigaDOS is supposed to be
friendlier this "all-in-1" concept fits a little better there.  ...and
of course, there could be override flags on the commands.
-- 
 Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net
       Drew University -- Box 1060, Madison, NJ -- 201-408-5389
   Standard Disclaimer: I am not the mouth-piece of Drew University