Jérémie Courrèges-Anglas wrote: > "Ted Unangst" <t...@tedunangst.com> writes: > > [...] > > >> > So let's return to the top. What does "PD KSH" in KSH_VERSION mean? What > >> > does > >> > one do differently if that string is present or missing? > >> > >> sigh > >> > >> pdksh is not the same thing as ksh88 or ksh93. And not the same thing as > >> mksh, which has grew features since it was based on pdksh from the > >> OpenBSD tree. And you may want to avoid known problems in some of those, > >> or use known nice features in others, whether it is in scripts or your > >> dotfiles. But for this obviously you have to know which shell you're > >> using. > >> > >> Your proposal to remove the variable or to change significantly its > >> content breaks other people's way to use ksh. > > > > I'm asking specifically what those features are. > > Well, good luck with that. > > > As things stand, we need to > > make a list of features *not* to implement, lest people's version > > tests become incorrect. > > Are you genuinely afraid that people won't be able to use the features > you plan to implement in ksh? Do you actually think that third-party > shell developers out there have stopped implementing features just > because ill-oriented users may make bad uses of $WHATEVERSH_VERSION?
In short, I think KSH_VERSION encompasses all the badness of web pages that check USER_AGENT. We should not perpetuatate such silliness.
