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Re: Repost, different list...File::Spec, cygwin, Syntactic vs. Semantic path analysis


One would have to wonder...

On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 03:25:17PM -0800, LA Walsh wrote:
>Interesting...wonder why they wouldn't just create pseudo devices
>in /dev and do the normal unix mount thing?  Seems odd to complicate the simple
>namespace model needlessly by adding a special syntax.
>
>Even still, just because one wants to have more traditional unix names doesn't
>preclude the possible design goal of backward compatibility with
>existing Win32 pathnames to aid in portable tool usage and design.
>
>Even a hard coded /smb/ or /smb:/ prefix on smb <host/sharename> shares would be
>a better choice that "//".  Why perpetuate the MS view of 
>SMB being 'special' vs. using an eventual mounting syntax that would
>allow it to coexist with /nfs/ type files?  If the mount system evolved
>enough in cygwin, then I could see mount allowing specification of
>'nfs' in a mount command -- either as a link to an MS-nfs method
>(assuming they were supply one) or cygwin-based NFS methods like the
>universal NFS server... 
>
>-linda
>
>
>> Cygwin predates RedHat. See http://cygwin.com/history.html  (the 
>> earliest date in the file is Dec 1995). RedHat bought Cygnus 
>> Solutions 
>> (which was a shop for commercial support for GNU software, especially 
>> GCC ports to obscure and new platforms), which did the 
>> original Cygwin work.
>> 
>> Anyone at RedHat from the original Cygwin team (the last 
>> warriors of the 
>> (in)famous "Beta 20" :-)?) wanna answer this?
>> 
>> There's an interesting line in the early changelogs:
>> 
>>     Release Beta 8
>>     [...]
>>     Much nicer way of describing paths, eg //c/foo is c:\foo.
>> 
>> Suggests that the early goal *was* to provide a POSIX-y view, and the 
>> exposing of Windows paths was added as a convenience..
>> 
>> 
>
>
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