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From:	"linda w \(cyg\)" <cygwin AT tlinx DOT org>
To:	<cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject:	RE: Repost, different list...File::Spec, cygwin, Syntactic vs. Semantic path analysis
Date:	Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:27:49 -0800
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Interesting...wonder why they wouldn't just create pseudo devices in /dev and do the normal unix mount thing?  Seems odd to complicate the simple namespace model needlessly by adding a special syntax.

Even still, just because one wants to have more traditional unix names doesn't preclude the possible design goal of backward compatibility with existing Win32 pathnames to aid in portable tool usage and design.

Even a hard coded /smb/ or /smb:/ prefix on smb <host/sharename> shares would be a better choice that "//".  Why perpetuate the MS view of 
SMB being 'special' vs. using an eventual mounting syntax that would allow it to coexist with /nfs/ type files?  If the mount system evolved enough in cygwin, then I could see mount allowing specification of 'nfs' in a mount command -- either as a link to an MS-nfs method (assuming they were supply one) or cygwin-based NFS methods like the universal NFS server... 

-linda


> Cygwin predates RedHat. See http://cygwin.com/history.html  (the
> earliest date in the file is Dec 1995). RedHat bought Cygnus 
> Solutions 
> (which was a shop for commercial support for GNU software, especially 
> GCC ports to obscure and new platforms), which did the 
> original Cygwin work.
> 
> Anyone at RedHat from the original Cygwin team (the last
> warriors of the 
> (in)famous "Beta 20" :-)?) wanna answer this?
> 
> There's an interesting line in the early changelogs:
> 
>     Release Beta 8
>     [...]
>     Much nicer way of describing paths, eg //c/foo is c:\foo.
> 
> Suggests that the early goal *was* to provide a POSIX-y view, and the
> exposing of Windows paths was added as a convenience..
> 
> 


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