On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Uwe Dippel wrote:
> Woodchuck: Thanks for the confirmation of tar being frontend to pax. Then,
> what is the good reason that the frontend kind of suppresses the
> abilities of the underlying routine ?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Uwe
I suspect it is to maintain compatibility with the most ancient
tars. There are a lot of ancient archives sitting around on 12"
9- and [gasp] 7-track tape, punch cards, etc, that would be lost
forever if tar changed. Tar, as an archive program, should be
always backward-compatible. Nothing is as frustrating as a write-only
tape.
Sometimes we forget that this system is now ~30 years old, which
is really ancient for software, so it will accumulate a few warts
and false teeth with time.
For example -- the system call "creat(2)" has five letters because
of a limitation of an early compiler. Should we change it to
"LetsMakeANewFile(2)"?
You can use a tool daily, and it does its job, but lacks a feature
that the similar tool in a neighboring village has -- Still you'll
never really want that feaure, you'll never think of it -- I think
this comes into play, too. But I cut my unix teeth on SysV, so
sometimes I wonder what happened to a SysV switch or feature.
Dave
--
"Confound these wretched rodents! For every one I fling away,
a dozen more vex me!" -- Doctor Doom
