On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 05:26:12PM -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
> While it is laudable to have an OS that's just a dedicated server OS with
> no further desktop aspirations... come on guys. 256 character exec limit?
> Most VMS servers are using ODS-2 which is a non-case preserving (think DOS)
> filesystem. Only allows 8 directories deep, alphanumerics (plus _- and $)
> with 39 character filenames. No dot allowed in the filename, that's
> reserved for extensions. Hateful to work around this.
That positively *reeks* of Unix chauvinism. I know that that sort of
thing can make portability of code between Unix and VMS a pain in the
arse, but it doesn't mean that it's WRONG.
Incidentally, while I don't like case-smashing filesystems, I do think
that case-insensitive filesystems are a good idea, and I wish Unix was
like that. Having files called Configure and configure, or install and
INSTALL is confusing even for someone like me who has used Unix-a-likes
almost exclusively for umpteen years.
Unfortunately, because of Unix, case-sensitivity is here to stay, so
Unix's bad design choice in that regard makes me have to Hate Windows
and VMS for reasons that I really don't want to Hate them for - while
they made the right choice in being case-insensitive, they made the
wrong choice in being incompatible.
--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information
If I could read only one thing it would be the future, in the
entrails of the bastard denying me access to anything else.
