Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 09:10:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas David Rivers <rivers@dignus.com> To: freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com, joelh@gnu.org, sastdr@unx.sas.com Subject: Re: Improvemnet of ln(1). Message-ID: <199807121310.JAA14646@lakes.dignus.com> In-Reply-To: <199807111926.OAA14413@detlev.UUCP>
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> > I will personally buy a beer (so long as it's not an American beer) > for the first five people who can show me current existance of such a > script. (In other words, a script written during or after this > discussion doesn't count.) That said, I sincerely doubt I'll have to > buy a single beer. > I don't know if this counts - but the source/build management system at SAS would break... technically, it's a program that scans the output. The code doesn't employ reasonable return-codes for some ungodly reasons, and thus, there are 'scraping scripts' that read through several gigs worth out shell/compiler/utility output and "decide" if the build was successful. Changing the behaviour of ln, as you suggest, would likely break all of that 'log scraping' code. [Who knows how many questionable 'ln' commands are embedded within this spaghetti.] Believe me; as I'm the manager of the compiler group; and I am expressly prohibited from changing even the smallest typo in a compiler message; much less adding a new one - for fear of such a calamity. The argument is that a broken 'script scraper' costs several thousands of developers a couple of days while it's repaired... we're talking man-years here of wasted time... I don't buy it myself - but that's the rule I live under. - Dave Rivers - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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