From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Jul 12 05:54:28 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA22826 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 05:54:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from elvis.vnet.net (elvis.vnet.net [166.82.1.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA22821 for ; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 05:54:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rivers@dignus.com) Received: from dignus.com (ponds.vnet.net [166.82.177.48]) by elvis.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.4) with ESMTP id IAA19085; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 08:54:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from lakes.dignus.com (lakes [10.0.0.3]) by dignus.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA25541; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 09:31:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rivers@localhost) by lakes.dignus.com (8.8.8/8.6.9) id IAA14584; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 08:58:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 08:58:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas David Rivers Message-Id: <199807121258.IAA14584@lakes.dignus.com> To: bakul@torrentnet.com, cyouse@artemis.syncom.net Subject: Re: Improvemnet of ln(1). Cc: dchapes@ddm.on.ca, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, joelh@gnu.org, rminnich@Sarnoff.COM In-Reply-To: Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > On Sat, 11 Jul 1998, Bakul Shah wrote: > > > For interactive use, alias ln to `ln -w' to warn you. If you > > change the default behavior of ln, you *will* break scripts. > > Unlike editors, ln is more likely to be used in scripts than > > interactively (well, it is so for most people). > > I fail to see how. An extra line output to stderr is going to break > scripts? Can you provide an example? > > > > Bottom line: backward compatibility is a good program design. > > Well, not always. Compare Windows/DOS. > > > Chuck > Sure... Consider the following files, 'foo' and 'bar': foo: ... do some stuff - with stderr copied to stdout (i.e. 2>&1) one of the 'stuff' commands is "ln" echo "done" bar: if test "`foo`" != "done" then something happened... fi The script was working just fine creating the symlink; with the change 'bar' now reports that something is amis. It is an example of a change in behaviour - which (depending on what 'something happened...' does; could be anywhere from annoying to devastating... Particularly, since the users/authors of this didn't expect the change (i.e. they didn't change 'foo') - Dave Rivers - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message