🚀 go-pugleaf

   On 31 Aug 92 14:59:07, bug-gnu-utils-request@prep.ai.mit.edu wrote:
   : In article <9208282057.AA12744@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes:
   : 
   : > In GNU, nodes can be both directories and ordinary files.
   : ...
   : > Suppose "foo" is such a node.  In that case "mv bar foo" should
   : > delete the existing foo (and the virtual hierarchy underneath it),
   : > replacing it with bar.  "mv bar foo/" should move bar into the
   : > directory foo, giving it the name foo/bar, and leaving the rest of
   : > the virtual hierarchy under foo untouched.
   : 
   : This sounds really bad to me.  If foo is going to act like a
   : directory, it should act like a directory, and one of the qualities of
   : acting like a directory is that "mv bar foo" renames "bar" to
   : "foo/bar".  If you do things any other way, then all sorts of typing
   : idioms that people have are no longer going to work, shell scripts and
   : programs are going to break, and so forth.

   I suggest that mib write a distinct command called something other
   than 'mv' that does what he wants it to do.  -David-

This is *not* about utilities, per se.  In GNU there will be nodes
which are both directories and files.  Don't presume otherwise.  This
will be true regardless of what sort of mv command you want to use.  

Most importantly, don't assume what people "want" in this environment,
because there are uses of this idea that you (and I) have never
considered.  Most important is to make everything *possible* and then
*convenient*.  The original brokenness of mv that started this
discussion, for example, removed the possibility of atomically
checking to see if something is a directory and completing the rename
if it is.  This is functionality that was *removed* from mv.  I'm
requesting, or perhaps demanding, that the functionality I'm building
in to the operating system be made available to users using ordinary
shell utilities.