[NTLUG:Discuss] Shortcuts

[R P Herrold]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Douglas Scott wrote:

> > But either way, the biggest problem I find with newbies who do that is that
> > the very first C program they write is invariably called "test.c" and compiles
> > to "test".  If "." is in their search path at the beginning of the list then
> > their program works OK - but a bunch of system commands that are really shell
> > scripts break mysteriously because they have things like:   <snip>

I took Dr Dobbs Journal author, and longtime C and C++
columnist to task for an article he wrote earlier this year on
this, wherein he described falling into the trap of confusing
a C program 'test' and the shell primative as a Linux defect
-- darn Windows refugees ... spoiled by MS's path slopiness.
<grin>

-------  extract follows ------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 22:39:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: R P Herrold <herrold at owlriver.com>
To: midifitz at MIDIFITZ.COM
Subject: DDJ 324 (May 2001) -- Good work when you can find it  ...

<snip>

I was a bit surprised at your description of the failure of
the 'test' program in a *nix environment ...  ./test seemed
straightforward to me ...  But I have been noodling Linux
since early on

<snip>

By the way -- I always read your (and most of the other)
columns in DDJ ; the articles may be vendor centric, or
ill-researched on occasion, but the columns are consistently
good ...

---------------------- ends ----------------

 Stevens, Al  (AS2529)  midifitz at MIDIFITZ.COM

I must have been too harsh -- I never got a reply.

-- Russ