From: s902114@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU (Zen [Stuart Bishop])
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: tell me i'm wrong (braindead design in os2)
Date: 23 Nov 1992 01:10:19 GMT
Organization: RMIT Computer Centre
NNTP-Posting-Host: minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au

cwilder@eis.calstate.edu (Charlotte Wilder) writes:

:)> get upper/lower without the $#&%##$ confusion of foo, FOO, Foo, FoO that
:)> accompanies UNIX.

:)Uh, is it just me, or does the fact that an operating system which has
:)case retentive filenames but is not case sensitive to those same filenames
:)bother you as well?  This isn't just OS/2, but Windows NT as well.  My
:)opinion is that this is incredibly stupid.  Why would anyone want to bother
:)naming a file "Foo" instead of "fOO" if the operating system can't
:)differentiate between the two?  If the difference in those filenames confuses
:)you, I suggest you go back to the all too secure and primitive world of
:)MS/LOSS.

I use differing cases to make letters in filenames stand out. I can
thus have a directory called UnixUtilities, which stands out as two
words much better than unixutilities. I can still, however, type it
in without using the shift key. And why would you want to differentiate
between UnixUtilities and unixUtilities and unixutilities. Having multiple
filenames which differs only by case seems really stupid. Would you become
confused if you came across a directory which contained both 'Makefile' and
'makefile'? I would. I wouldn't know which would be called as a default for
a start when I enter 'make'. There are already ( > (39*255)!.... hmm..
probabilities was a while ago.) lots and lots of combinations of filenames.
Anyone who has a Foo and a foo in the same directory is asking for trouble
(or entering the obfuscated C contest).

:)And another thing... OS/2 seems to me like a 32bit MS/PC DOS... almost
:)identicle except for the fact that OS/2 has built in multitasking abilities.
:)Isn't that kinda stupid?  Shouldn't we be trying to get away from the
:)droll of MS/DOS and try to get into a more modular, usable, and yet powerful
:)operating system?  Windows NT attempts to breach some of the real borders
:)of DOS, but isn't that great, yet.

What do you mean? I shall assume that you are talking about the problems
with '\/-' chars.

OS/2 is an operating system that runs on PC's. It is designed to be
compatible with MS-DOS. Thus we need to use '\' in filenames. Either that,
or have the option of having differing switch characters in OS/2 and DOS
modes. Most programmers will still probably hard code in '\' instead of
getswitchchar(), just as most UNIX programmers will code in a literal '/'.
eg. Is there any way of doing this in makefiles? Would you like to re-edit
every switch character in a makefile? Some of them do get rather hairy...

Also remember that OS/2 is supposed to be an alternative to DOS, making DOS
users move across to OS/2. IBM would be quite happy to have the UNIX users
move across to AIX (but now that 386BSD and linux are here...) Thus, it
will resemble MS-DOS. I find that OS/2 IS a usable and powerful operating
system. What do you mean by modular? That it should resemble other
operating systems? If so, should it be modular with DOS, Amiga-DOS,
MacinDOS (?), Unix, VMS... the list is endless. Resembling DOS was both a
design and marketing descision. If it did not, there would be no DOS or
Windows compatibility. I doubt that you could make an operating system
resemble everything. And I don't see how the naming of commands affects their
power. Is Dir any less powerful than ls ? They both list files. UNIX does
have have many more commands such as find. These are being ported across to
OS/2. Unix pays for this baggage by being that much larger. People still
think OS/2 is too big, and are thus avoiding it.

You are probably going to become quite frustrated if you have to do serious
work on both platforms, as you must remember that they are different
operating systems. Os/2 is NOT UNIX, and will thankfully remain so. I am in
the opposite boat to you. I was using mainly DOS, with some UNIX. Now I use
OS/2, and some UNIX. I find that OS/2 is more usable and powerful than
UNIX, simply because I know it better. Modular? They are different
operating systems. I never expected them to look the same.

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