Xref:	news2.mv.net comp.lang.c:81208 comp.lang.c++:102769 comp.os.msdos.djgpp:7773
Newsgroups:	comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.os.msdos.djgpp
From:	Dan DOT Pop AT cern DOT ch (Dan Pop)
Subject:	Re: fopen problem.
Message-ID:	<danpop.840714366@news.cern.ch>
Sender:	news AT news DOT cern DOT ch (USENET News System)
Organization:	CERN European Lab for Particle Physics
References:	<4v1gkv$kld AT lion DOT cs DOT latrobe DOT edu DOT au> <3219B4F3 DOT 2A41 AT iti-oh DOT com> <840644787snz AT genesis DOT demon DOT co DOT uk> <321BB9BF DOT 5A68 AT cs DOT com>
Date:	Thu, 22 Aug 1996 11:46:06 GMT
Lines:	31
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

In <321BB9BF DOT 5A68 AT cs DOT com> "John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com> writes:

>Lawrence Kirby wrote:
>> 
>> In article <3219B4F3 DOT 2A41 AT iti-oh DOT com> bjs AT iti-oh DOT com "Brian Sayatovic" writes:
>> >You sure can.  On most UNIX file systems, you would use
>> >"/path/name/file.name".  The only difference is that most UNIX operating
>> >systems use a forward slash instead of a backslash.
>> 
>> All Unix OSs do, and DOS accepts forward slashes too. It is only
>> COMMAND.COM that requires backslashes.
>
>Which again just goes to show just what wonderful morons the Micro$oft
>programmers are...  or rather, the people who tell those programmers what
>to do.  I sometimes wonder if the term "user satisfaction" is even in
>Bill Gates's vocabulary.

I'm the last one to defend Microsoft or its CEO, but anybody with half
a clue about the history of MSDOS knows that COMMAND.COM does the right
thing.  The forward slash was intended as the prefix for command options,
as it was in most of the popular operating system interfaces of the time
(RT-11, RSX-11, VAX/VMS, CP/M-80), hence it could be not used as a path
separator by the command line interpretor.  Those who switched from those
systems to Unix found the Unix convention equally awkward.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: Dan DOT Pop AT cern DOT ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

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