Using ".." in Scripts & Makefiles

[Mark O'Shea]

I am resposible for upgrading a set of test suites which have some scripts
and makefiles that do things like:

   HOME=..

or
   cd ../../

etc.

Now I know that they will work, but I am instinctively uncomfortable with
them.  I personally believe that spelling out the path names is a better
practice.

What I want to know is some good reasons to change to what I believe to
be a sounder way of doing it, eg,

  HOME=/<name>/<user>/<etc>

or
  cd /<name>/<dir1>/<etc>

The folks I am presently working for don't agree with me on this point.

Thanks,
Mark O'Shea
marko at ijf1.intel.com