From: doug@cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Subject: [TUHS] Device special files
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2018 19:09:34 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <201802090009.w1909YPC129547@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> (raw)
> Why is it that umount(2) took the device special file name rather than the mount point directory name, anyway?
Symmetry. You unmount what you mount.
A competing model is that of links. Link makes an old file available
under a new name. But you unlink by the new name. Necessarily so,
because there may be many new names for one old file.
This is reminiscent of Don Norman's screed about the unnaturalness
of Unix. He didn't like strcpy because the arguments come in the
opposite order to those of cp. But stcpy is part of C, and in
C the destination of assignment comes before the source. But Norman
didn't rail at C. You pays your money and takes your choice.
Doug
next reply other threads:[~2018-02-09 0:09 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 32+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-02-09 0:09 Doug McIlroy [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2018-02-07 1:38 Noel Chiappa
2018-02-06 15:56 ron minnich
2018-02-06 17:56 ` Larry McVoy
2018-02-06 18:03 ` ron minnich
2018-02-06 19:48 ` Random832
2018-02-07 1:25 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2018-02-07 1:36 ` Ron Natalie
2018-02-07 1:40 ` Clem Cole
2018-02-07 1:47 ` Henry Bent
2018-02-07 1:48 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-02-07 2:06 ` Dan Cross
2018-02-07 16:24 ` Arthur Krewat
2018-02-07 16:34 ` Dan Cross
2018-02-07 16:34 ` Nemo
2018-02-07 16:59 ` ron minnich
2018-02-08 0:39 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-02-08 16:18 ` Arthur Krewat
2018-02-08 22:47 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-02-07 2:13 ` Bakul Shah
2018-02-07 5:39 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-02-07 18:36 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2018-02-07 19:07 ` Ian Zimmerman
2018-02-07 22:05 ` Clem Cole
2018-02-07 22:38 ` ron minnich
2018-02-07 22:48 ` Ron Natalie
2018-02-08 18:59 ` Random832
2018-02-07 23:06 ` Bakul Shah
2018-02-08 19:06 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2018-02-07 22:04 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-02-08 13:03 ` Rafael R Obelheiro
2018-02-08 19:25 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
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