On 27-Nov-01 Anders Johansson wrote:
the aliases aren't so bad. Someone said mount /A: was a good mnemonic, but I don't see how it's better than mount /floppy. A: is a letter followed by a punctuation mark. 'floppy' says what it is.
Well, if it's natural to think of "A:" as a DOS floppy drive, then that also "says what it is"; after all, "floppy" itself is simply six letters. But that's all a bit philosophico-linguistical. Also to the point is that "A:" is only three keypresses, and less error-prone than "floppu" (oops). Even more to the point (for "/C:") is that "mount /C:" is MUCH easier than (on my relevant system) "mount -o... /dev/hdc3 /dos1"; and even easier would be a command "C:" which simply did all that so that I wouldn't even have to type "mpunt" (oops).
Only people with environmental damages from various other OSes could find A: 'intuitive' and they have to be re-educated ASAP.
Well, there are a few of us around (in my case from maybe 15
years ago), more coming over still, and many who are obliged to
use both systems competently. Which is why I very seriously
object to your final statement (unless you meant it in fun):
"re-education" sounds more like "brain-washing" -- however,
I can accept "further education": you keep the skills and
competences you have, but you also acquire new ones, and you
apply both in the correct contexts, ac cording as you find
yourself in them.
Which is why, for me, "mount /C:" is useful (and, indeed,
why "C:" would be even better) when I want to mount a DOS
partition. But if it's not for you, or you don't have call
for it, then by all means don't bother. Aliases like this
are a personal matter. If they're useful and meaningful,
help efficient work, and don't break anything else, then
they're fine and it doesn't matter what you call them.
But the SuSE response from "A:" or "C:" reads like "re-education"
by mockery. Not nice and not necessary.
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding)