Msg: 2358 *Conference*

04-14-92 15:32:20

From: JON SHURTLEFF

To : ROBERT BENSON

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #2318 (WARM)

Robert,
 
Do you have a DOS manual or book?  In case you haven't already found the answer
to this there a several more reserved characters that have special meaning in
do besides ? and *.  / is used as a command line switch designator.  |
designates a 'pipe' in standard input/output redirection, as are < and >.
There are a couple more, I believe.  The command processor 4DOS, which replaces
COMMAND.COM and does an admirable job of adding to DOS all the stuff that
Microsoft should have included plus a log t of other goodies expands on this.
It includes the TEE command for example so that you can tap standard output and
send simultaneously to two different locations, such as a file and your
printer.  I can't remember how it's designated, or if it's a single character.
There is no WHY to these things in the sense your asking.  You just learn the
rules and play by them to get the results you want.  For example, -can also
indicate a command line switch, but it can also be used in filenames.  I think
the reason is that the programmer can make his program recognize whatever he
wants as a switch - some programs don't use a designator - rather than the one
the boys from Redmond built in.  This makes for a lot of confusion, but this is
hardly the only example.  As another example, I can never remember whether I
should have a \ on the very end of pathname or not.  I don't seem to see any
rational pattern to it.  This is why Mac people make fun of us.  It's just life
in the Land of DOS.  This follow the Big Blue Bricked Road and maybe start
reading a little about existentialism.  I use a PC therefore I'm confused.
It's just kind of an unavoidable fact of life.  Windows has brought some order
to the chaos while creating confusion of it's own.  The alternatives are not
markedly better from what I've seen.  And why should they be.  As long as
people continue to buy the machines and the software, and then upgrade and buy
more software whenever it's 'improved', and as long as the warranty on every
peice of software in existance goes untested that they are absolutely not
responsible in any way for any damages of any kind that might be caused by
their software why should they write anything definitive?  Well, that went a
little beyond the scope of what I was going to write, it felt good.  Didn't
know I was so annoyed at it all.  Jon.