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From:	John (Deceased persons have no earning capacity) Mackin <john@civil.su.
	oz.au>
Date:	Wed, 2 Dec 1992 22:48:47 -0500
To:	The rc Mailing List <rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: All I want for Christmas ...
In-Reply-To: <9212030341.AA09702@oldp.astro.wisc.edu>
Message-ID: <199212031448.1918.rc.badug@civil.su.oz.au>
X-Face: 39seV7n\`#asqOFdx#oj/Uz*lseO_1n9n7rQS;~ve\e`&Z},nU1+>0X^>mg&M.^X$[ez>{F
 k5[Ah<7xBWF<un6={nlL7Om5<0UsuHKjCxs)C$`DP.N'-LLb8=8)"a@d2bG-f7qD2AJ#UZ>-@-ru?&
 @4K4-b`ydd^`(n%Z{

    If I do:

    	; exec foo
    	foo not found

    then rc dies (as do all other shells, I believe).

Not _all_ other shells, just most of 'em.  The Pike (V8+) version of
sh continues after a failed exec.  I don't think this is too big an
issue, but I lean to the side of continuing, on the basis that if
the user typed the exec interactively and made a typo or was confused,
they probably didn't want their shell to go away.

    2. -s flag

This has been talked about on the list before.  Boyd did this 'cos he
felt he had to.  I sent Boyd's code to Rich Salz.

Personally, as I have said before, I see nothing at all wrong with
adopting command line usage that brings rc more into line with the
defacto standard set by sh, and therefore I am behind -s, if not
heavily.  On the other hand, I find it disappointing that -s
proponents cannot muster anything better than the tired old `I
seem to need this on Ultrix, for reasons I can't explain' argument.
Hell, people!  I have many Ultrix boxes here.  They are good boxes!
The _first_ thing you do on an Ultrix box is build X11R5.  The _second_
thing you do is rm -rf DEATHwindows, and set up xdm and R5.  Come on
up to Freely Distributable X Windows, Your International Passport
To Bitmapped Graphics Pleasure!  You'll Be So Glad You Did!

(Well hell, X is terrible, but it's a gazillion times better than
DEATHwindows.  Of course you might have special graphics hardware,
watch that one.  Luckily, we don't.)

OK,
John.