Re^2: Unix deficiencies/problems (logical names [oh no! :-)])

[Usenet file owner]

In article <17410 at mimsy.UUCP> chris at mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>Apparently he prefers the sort of behaviour exemplifed by the following
>posting (taken directly from comp.os.vms/info-vax):
>
>[article <890424131552.2040069d at UWYO.BITNET>, from jimkirk at OUTLAW.UWYO.EDU]
>>What pointed this out was my attempt to compile a Fortran program named MP,
>>when the command "FORT MP" blew up because it could not find MP_8NN.  I can
>>work around with "FORT MP.FOR", but why is MP system-wide?
>
>This is why the shells (and the editors---both vi and Emacs [GNU
>*and* Unipress] expand environment variables in file names) use a
>bit of syntax to enable variable expansion.  Apparently once someone
>else has defined `speech' in VMS, you cannot get rid of it.

  Not quite.  Just to clear things up:

1.  DEC screwed up when they made MP system-wide.  Most system-wide
    logical names use the "$" (a character reserved for DEC's use) in
    their name.  For instance, SYS$SYSTEM is the equivalent of "/bin".

2.  There are four kinds of logical names (actually you can make more,
    but these are the main ones): process, job, group, and system.
    A process logical name is similar to an environment variable.  A
    job logical name is shared between all processes that are part of
    a session (i.e., the ones which share a control terminal in UNIX
    terminology, more or less).  It takes privilege to create group or
    system-wide logical names.

  I like environment variables.  I also like logical names.

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