To:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
From:	Stuart Herbert <S DOT Herbert AT sheffield DOT ac DOT uk>
Date:	23 Mar 94 15:18:49
Subject:	Re: opinions wanted

> Since this is a subject of particular passion with me, I want to weigh
> in on the line terminators issue. I'm going to ramble a little. :-)

Me too :-)

> First, I believe it's a lot easier to change your editor than to change
> the info file formats or the info software. To show how easy it can be,
> I've included below the few lines of MicroEMACS code I needed to set
> things right. (Sorry about the style. I try to study occasionally. :-) )

Not so.  There are many people out there who use a native DOS editor (like
the *excellent* QEdit, for example) who are perfectly happy with it.  To
many people, tools like Vi, EMACS etc require time *that they do not have*.

> Second, I think if we are going to change, we ought to make DOS more
> UNIX-like, rather than patching UNIX ports to handle DOS. I started in
> the DOS world in 1985, but discovered UNIX two years later. I found that
> DOS was a brain-dead cousin to UNIX with many painful cosmetic changes
> and the ability to do less. (To this day, I can't figure out why DOS
> would have changed a pre-existing option character - and directory
> character / to / and \ respectively. For that matter, I'm not sure why
> MicroEMACS uses *slightly* different commands than real EMACS, etc.)

DOS cannot be made *that* much more unix-like.  It's a single user,
primitive filing system, and that's it.  Ask Microsoft why they chose
the switches and delimiters that they did :)  If a program is ported
to DOS, then there will be DOS users as well as Unix users who will want
to use it.  So long as a program can behave in both styles, what's the
problem?

> You get the idea. IMO, it's smarter to move toward UNIX, and I've done
> that as much as I find practical. (The major reason I haven't tried
> installing linux is that I don't have a tape drive, for instance.) My
> 386 is walking (cycling?) proof that you can get fairly close with
> little effort.

Symbolic links.  Two people logged in at once (or more).  Wide Area
Network.  Background task handling.  No 640K limit.  All of these are
things DOS can't do.  What you have is merely a mirage of unix, not quite
the real thing :)

> I'm assuming that anyone on this list must like at least some UNIXy
> features, and that I'm not talking to an unsympathetic audience. I most
> definitely do not want to see DJ's compiler or any other ports go DOSsy
> (Mmmmoooo! :-) ), except as absolutely needed to get them on our DOS
> boxes. I'd like to hear what the listmembers actually think.

The amount of effort that seems to have gone into DJ's port to emulate
Borland's libraries suggests that the process is already happening.  A
simple patch to a (imho) lousy info system, so that it can handle DOS
files *as well as* unix files is hardly a big deal (so long as it don't
break anything :)

> Respectfully,
> Geno

That's my opinion.  I use a mixture of DOS and Unix utilities - whatever
happens to be best for the job in question.  There are advantages and
disadvantages to *everything*.  You just have to find your *own* balance.

Stuart

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