Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: Beginnings of a patch: /etc/hosts From: Robert Collins To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-ea8EWY622UVO3CzXd1Fw" Date: 12 Sep 2002 16:49:41 +1000 Message-Id: <1031813381.22459.132.camel@lifelesswks> Mime-Version: 1.0 --=-ea8EWY622UVO3CzXd1Fw Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, 2002-09-12 at 10:10, Igor Pechtchanski wrote: > > Rule #1: The user knows better than the tool. If the user wants to fool > > the script, they can, even with uname. If a user is doing that, assume > > they have a reason and let them do it with grace. > > > > Rob >=20 > True. Hey, I'm a control freak myself... I was not speaking against > "fooling the script", I was just making an observation. However, the > issue here is not the intentional "fooling" that you describe, but > unintentional. It's much harder to do that with 'uname -s' than with an > environment variable. Ok, I mis-interpreted your intention. =20 > Besides, why would anyone want to fool a post-install script? > Mmm, I guess I could think of a few reasons, but then shouldn't all > post-install scripts be susceptible to fooling in the same way, i.e., > "with grace"? Should this be documented somewhere? I wasn't suggesting they *should* or *should not* be foolable. I was really trying to say that the design should not be based on whether or not a user can *intentionally* override something - because one way or another the user can. The design should be whatever is: * easy to maintain * robust in the face of usual and common-unusual conditions. Rob --=-ea8EWY622UVO3CzXd1Fw Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQA9gDkEI5+kQ8LJcoIRAkshAKCwT8CJRTbGF4mv7l9HZZMnhhknCwCfR/eY 742c1yFeBiecCrcLZ1VA7dI= =Q70b -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-ea8EWY622UVO3CzXd1Fw--