Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Just as an example, I
>> have never seen a soft link used in Windows, or seen the need for a soft 
>> link other than to fix broken programs that hard-coded file names that they 
>> were supposed to be pulling out of the environment. People don't use soft 
>> links to point to the right location - they use configuration variables.
> 
>   Well, duh. People don't use soft links because Windows doesn't support
> them. Seems plainly obvious.

It has some support. People don't use them because they don't need them, 
really.  Software is written to not hard-code paths that don't need to be 
hard-coded. *Some* people nevertheless hard-code paths, so you wind up with 
soft links from "Documents and Settings" to "Users" or just leaving 64-bit 
code under System32.

>   I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be writing that if Windows had full support
> for soft links from day one to this day.

Uh, yes, actually, I would.  I think soft links are an abomination, and I've 
only ever seen them used to basically correct flaws in software 
configurations. If I had something like a registry in Linux, I'd probably 
never use a soft link. As it is, I tend to have one soft link per project 
that sits in the root and points to the base of the tree of project code and 
configuration.  I'm all for fixing problems right, myself.

It's not like UNIX had them from day one either.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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