Re^2: Unix deficiencies/problems

[Chris Torek]

In an article whose referent was deleted by faulty news software,
I suggested using some of the shell's capabilities for abbreviations:
>>$ joe=/home/orion/jsmith/projectA/speech
>>$ cd $joe
>>$ ls $joe

In article <810049 at hpsemc.HP.COM> gph at hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) writes:
>   Okay, now I run my program that refers directly to 'speech' in an 
>OPEN statement.   OOOPS!  wrong directory.

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.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris