Mail Archives: opendos/2003/09/27/01:56:11
> Well, given the *purpose* of replace, it's not unreasonable.
Okay, yes. Getting a bit confused between replace and xcopy in what I'm
writing about. Sorry about that Chief. :-) It would be reasonable to have
that situation for replace.
> After all, you can just write a batch file that uses wildcards
> to give you the functionality you want.
I guess so. I might look at that. Most people wouldn't know how to do
that though, so it should still be there to begin with. Philosophically,
it should be available for people to use as part of the OS.
> See my comments below about having to maintain compatability
> with *old* batch files.
See my coments too. Having it turned off by default, and not ENABLING
it to be turned on again, are 2 different things. My beef is that it can't
be turned on even if you want to.
> You mised my point. Due to the options being different, I can't give you
> the command line that'll do what you want without knowing what you are
> running.
What options? All I want to know is if there's a way to turn on
"confirm before overwrite" with copy or xcopy. As far as I can gather,
there isn't. erase and delete have eraq and delq versions, but no such
thing exists for copy/xcopy, and the option to enable it has been
crippled.
> > So provide an option to turn it on - it can't even be turned on!
> > Most
> > users don't even HAVE any batch files, never mind lots. Only a handful
> > actually go as far as doing some programming of their computer.
>
> Most users don't use copy anymore. They use Windows Explorer.
Which would be why they don't have any batch-files of their own. :-)
> Most *customers* (in terms of dollars spent) for DR-DOS and
> other command line interpreters these days (and from the
> almost the beginning) are *commercial* users. They *do* need
> that compatability.
As I keep saying, that's a reason for having a default, NOT a reason to
cripple being able to CHANGE the default ("default" usually means you have
several options, and it's the one you'll get if you don't specify
otherwise - but in this case there AREN'T any options, as the option to
have confirm has been permanently switched off. not only has no-confirm
been made the default, it's been made the only choice available).
> Sorry, but back when "personal" users where the majority, DOS didn't
> exist.
Sorry, but there were still only a handful of personal users (compared
to today's numbers) BEFORE DOS/Windows. It was because of Evil Bill that
they have proliferated so much (the one thing that you could grudgingly
say he did that was good). It was DOS/Windows that "put a personal
computer in every home".
> And command.com was an *example* command processor shell. It
> wasn't expected that it'd be more than a stopgap when it was written.
> And by the time it was clear that it had become a standard,
> compatability *had* to be maintained.
Again, compatability can be maintained by having it switched off by
default, but that's no reason to dis-able it from being switched on when
desired. Compatability doesn't demand it be permanently disabled (only
Bill trying to get people to stop using DOS dictates things getting
permanently disabled - and in trying to get people away from MS, DR-DOS
should be as flexible as possible to enhance it's appeal).
> That's what backups are for.
Backups don't always work (I have encountered this MANY times in my
career - that just when a backup was needed for a restore, it was found
that the backups hadn't been working properly. I have found this with both
ISP's and companies I've worked for. Backups are just ONE ay to protect
against accidents - confirm before over-write is another).
> Except that it was *never* aimed at personal users.
So, the Bill Gates/IBM personal computer wasn't aimed at personal
users? Never?
> > One which was put there because people DO forget
> > things, and DO make typo's. Are we all expected to be Automatons now?
> > I'm sorry - I know more about computers than most people I know (and I
> > work in IT), but I still have human flaws. I still forget things and
> > make typo's.
>
> It's not a "common option" in *any* version of command.com.
This is the first time I've encountered it NOT being there. I'm even
sure it was there in older versions of DR-DOS (why would there be a switch
there to switch off something that was never enabled to begin with?). I
haven't used MS-DOS recently, but I'm sure it was still prompting before
overwrite last time I did (it may have been crippled since then, as part
of Bill's plan to get rid of it, just like wild-cards and other stuff got
crippled).
dp.
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