Cygwin: Open or Closed System? (was: two problems with cygwin's zip)

[Fred T. Hamster]

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> I'm glad that you could use cygwin without understanding the motivation
> behind its existence.  I don't think that this should either be a
> bragging point or an argument in favor of changing the way that we've
> been doing things.


  i'm really sad that the tone of the cygwin mailing list seems to be 
"users come here to be beaten".  blunt tools arguments aside, i can't 
see the above as much beyond an insult.  insults don't prove points either.
  i for one cannot accept the rationale being promulgated that a system 
for unix emulation on win32 should be ignorant of the native platform's 
path specification, when calling into the environment from windows is 
clearly a desirable capability.  to me, that rationale seems to 
drastically underrate how useful better handling of wildcards in the 
presence of backslashes would be.   i am beginning to see how my 
standpoint could be confused with a lack of understanding of the 
rationale behind cygwin...  i don't pretend to know the real motivation 
at work in the language above, but if a "hack and slash" style of 
response is a habitual refuge for questions potentially indicating 
fundamental issues, then the chance for real dialogue in the list is 
pretty well hindered.  i apologize if i'm just making up that 
interpretation of your tone.  but just because i don't agree with this 
aspect of cygwin does not in turn mean it's appropriate that abuse shall 
be heaped upon me.

> I will grant you that the documentation is not clear.  Hopefully we'll fix 
> that soon so that further people will not be confused.

  so the "expectations as a windows programmer" are going to be reduced 
such that there is no expectation of wildcard support?  this is quite a 
bummer to me.  but i guess it might help to reduce the expectations of 
people for what cygwin can do.

> Until then, I've told you in several email messages how cygwin is
> supposed to operate.
> I have mentioned that it is not feasible to port every single package to
> work with MS-DOS pathnames.
> I really don't know why you don't understand this.
> Or, rather, I don't know what you expect to happen.  Are you expecting
> that the volunteers who contribute to the project will drop everything and
> work on zip?

  i don't see how you read those expectations into my comments.  and in 
previous emails, i have honed down the exact issue that i am talking 
about; perhaps that focus is appearing to you as a lack of understanding 
instead.  currently, my main interest is in seeing if there is a project 
wide improvement in interoperability possible by modifying glob().  i 
have made a sincere offer to look into this, but the language i hear 
(from the list at large) about the possible acceptance of that future 
patch wavers between "go for it" and "no bleating way".  in the face of 
this uncertainty, my desire to contribute is gradually chiselled away. 
 but your last comments that you would consider such patches give me 
heart again, and i will endeavor to maintain my interest in this.

> Or, if you are going to wait until later in the summer before you
> actually look into anything, then that's fine.  Let's just stop arguing
> about semantics.  I will trump you every time.  I can do that.  I'm
> a closed system.

  semantics is meaning.  meaning is important.
  i personally don't believe that might makes right...  in a truly 
collaborative project, there is no single voice that can shout all the 
others down.  i don't want to say that's what you're doing, although it 
did feel somewhat that way to me at times.  but this could easily be my 
misconstruing of the real spirit behind the words.
  i'm satisfied for now that the polarization against win32 wildcards is 
such that only a patch which can be analyzed would even have a chance of 
changing any opinions.  expect that the issue may re-arise and include 
some code for consideration in a month or two.
thanks,
fred.

-- 
_____ chosen by the Nechung Oracle Program [ http://www.gruntose.com/ ] _____

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

_____________ not necessarily my opinions, not necessarily not. _____________




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