Jim Henderson wrote:
> Your point is that updating a file while it's open and has a shared text 
> segment would cause a problem. 

No, my point is that there are numerous ways that things can fail, and if 
your OS doesn't supply the right tools, you wind up writing ad-hoc manual 
work-arounds to recover when the program tells you it failed.

> My point is that if you're *updating* the 
> file, the inode changes *unless* the file is being overwritten by an 
> unmodified version of that file 

Uh, not according to my runs of gcc. Maybe the SuSE updater works that way, 
but that just reinforces my point: they have to have an ad-hoc 
application-specific work-around for the problem.

> The SUSE updater, though, applies patches, so only files that have 
> changed would get updated.......so again, not seeing what the problem is 
> here.

That you're discussing something different from what I'm trying to talk about?

You're failing to understand that I'm pointing out something entirely 
different than what you're arguing.  I'm pointing out that UNIX has 
traditionally addressed limitations in UNIX with ad-hoc manual and/or 
application-specific work-arounds, while most other systems incorporate into 
the operating system those operations that most applications need. When I 
say "it doesn't need to be this bad," you keep answering with "in this one 
case, it's possible to work around the problems most of the time if you're 
careful."  That isn't the point, tho.

--
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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