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From: usenet@mcdchg.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on filenames - "" in particular
Message-ID: <2738@mcdchg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 14:26:35 EST
Article-I.D.: mcdchg.2738
Posted: Thu Dec  3 14:26:35 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 19:04:59 EST
References: <3844@elecvax.eecs.unsw.oz> <2597@mcdchg.UUCP>
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Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
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Approved: usenet@mcdchg.UUCP
Summary: I don't believe this discussion is even going on!

In article <2597@mcdchg.UUCP>, dave@murphy.UUCP (Dave Cornutt) writes:
> I know this is beating a dead horse, and probably everyone is sick of this
> subject by now, and I promise to make this my last posting on this topic.

Over in comp.sys.amiga we've been having a very similar discussion. You see,
on the Amiga NULL is the *only* valid name for the current directory. Isn't
that just peachy? Think about all the times you've wanted to refer to "./".
Think about what you would do if you couldn't DO that?

The Amiga has a special name for the root. Colon.

:xyz means /xyz.

:/xyz is illegal.

/xyz means ../xyz.


So, you can't just add "/name" and get stuff to work. Peachy.
What am I saying? I'm saying the UNIX file naming convention is just fine. 
There's no reason to go hacking it up. It's useful to allow NULL to work as a
synonym for ., because it makes for nice default behaviour. Don't wreck the
file system making it "perfect".

> Does this make any sense, or is it too much like VMS?

This doesn't make any sense at all. It's too much like all sorts of brain
damaged things.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.