From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from harvard.harvard.edu ([128.103.1.1]) by archone.tamu.edu with SMTP id <22531>; Fri, 23 Aug 1991 12:58:49 -0500 Received: by harvard.harvard.edu (5.54/a0.25) (for rc@archone.tamu.edu) id AA29615; Fri, 23 Aug 91 14:00:45 EDT Received: from gatech.UUCP (uucp.gatech.edu) by gatech.edu (4.1/Gatech-9.1) id AA07931 for archone.tamu.edu!rc; Fri, 23 Aug 91 13:52:34 EDT Received: from skeeve.UUCP by gatech.UUCP (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA25530; Fri, 23 Aug 91 13:52:33 EDT Received: by skeeve.ATL.GA.US (smail2.5) id AA01376; 23 Aug 91 12:24:23 EDT (Fri) From: gatech!skeeve!arnold@harvard.harvard.edu (Arnold D. Robbins) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 11:24:20 -0500 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (6.5.6 6/30/89) To: John Mackin , The rc Mailing List Subject: Re: early reaction(s) to rc Message-Id: <9108231224.AA01376@skeeve.ATL.GA.US> > (On a point of pure gustation, I do have to > say I don't like the name much -- but on the other hand I can't think of > a better one right now either: the obvious sigbegin doesn't appeal, > and sigenter (as the antonym of sigexit) doesn't sound right either. > Suggestions, any rcer's?) Shorten it to SIGSTART. > As a quite separate issue I'd like to address the question of telling > whether or not the shell is interactive. sh has $-, and $- has many > puzzling bugs, and inconsistencies between different versions of sh; > these render a very pleasing concept very hard to use in practice. My $.02: $options is a list of (sorted?) command line options that are in effect: ; echo options are: $options options are: -i -n -x This makes it easy to see what's turned on, although turning things on and off one at a time is harder, in both rc programs and inside rc itself. This is the start of an idea, anyway; I acknowledge it's not full blown. > I have some further comments about the idea of root prompt, su, and > the sigstartup proposal, Byron has told me in private mail he doesn't think the shell should automatically change prompts for root. I disagree, but not terribly strongly. My own suggestion for a root prompt would be ';; '. Arnold Robbins -- The Basement Computer | Laundry increases Internet: arnold@skeeve.ATL.GA.US | exponentially in the UUCP: { gatech, emory }!skeeve!arnold | number of children. Bitnet: Forget it. Get on a real network. | -- Miriam Robbins