Unix deficiencies/problems

[Dave Hammond]

In article <19472 at adm.BRL.MIL> Kemp at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL writes:
>Say there are a few of my friends' directories and files that are of
>general interest:
> /home/orion/jsmith/projectA/speech
> /home/magellan/tjones/lib/splib.a
>With logical names, I could define the first as "joe" and the second as
>"splib", and do things like:
> cd joe
> ls joe
> ar t splib
> cc myprog -lsplib
> as well as writing application programs that use them.  Environment
>variables won't work unless you rewrite all your applications AND ALL
>UNIX APPLICATIONS to do a getenv before every open (figure the odds!).

That's silly.  If you substitute environ vars for `joe' and `splib' in
the previous example, ie:

	cd $joe
	ls $joe
	ar t $splib
	cc myprog -l$splib

it is the shell which must expand `$joe' and `$splib', not your application.
Rest assured, the shell will do so.

--
Dave Hammond
daveh at marob.masa.com