f.c.

[Byron Rakitzis <byron>]

On the topic of username completion and other feeping creaturism, I
wanted to offer the following thoughts:

1) I don't want to add a new feature to rc unless someone cannot do
what they need to do without it. Putting the $^ hack in, for example,
was a big decision for me, and what persuaded me was the fact that it
was not otherwise possible to get $^ output without mucking around with
$ifs in a really ugly way.

2) Saying that your system administrator is too stupid or won't apply
the change, or that the filesystem should not be polluted with soft
links is not a conclusive argument as far as I am concerned. I honestly
think that /u is the correct way to solve the home directory problem,
because it is most definitely the most portable solution, which works
across ALL unix tools and ALL unix systems. I don't see why I need to
break rc in order to satisfy uncooperative sysadmins.

3) The readline brouhaha is a different kettle of fish as far as I am
concerned:  I added readline support because it was so easy to do so,
and because there are so many people out there "addicted" to filename
completion and command-line editing who would not otherwise consider
using rc. The number of requests for readline support that I have
received has been staggering! The number of requests for username
completion can be counted on the fingers of one hand.  Therefore, I saw
it as a necessary evil for rc to gain acceptance. (And in any case,
readline does not affect the language which rc accepts, so it was
easier to swallow the readline pill) As I said in a previous note, I am
hoping that people will instead use a mux-like xterm in order to get
command-line editing. But it is a little disingenuous of me to advocate
the use of such a program when no such program yet exists!  Hence,
readline.