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From: jdb@mordor.s1.gov (John Bruner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: .. not considered as a botch
Message-ID: <14336@mordor.s1.gov>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 14:30:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: mordor.14336
Posted: Mon Jul  6 14:30:34 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jul-87 06:21:14 EDT
References: <8075@brl-adm.ARPA> <6037@brl-smoke.ARPA> <13640@mordor.s1.gov> <6054@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner)
Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL
Lines: 12

I periodically must explain to users why the pathname "~/.login"
(for example) isn't understood by most of the programs that they
use.  I do not want to explain why "../foo" means one thing to
the shell (or, worse yet, one of the shells) and another thing
to their favorite editor or other utility.

If the semantics of ".." are to be changed, the proper place for
the change is the kernel, not in some (but, inevitably, not all)
user-level programs.
-- 
  John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
  jdb@mordor.s1.gov	...!seismo!mordor!jdb		(415) 423-4848