Subject: Re: Lisp as replacement for python
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2001 03:20:43 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3216770441744098@naggum.net>

* Kaz Kylheku
| If it's not an executable, it s shunted to the same command interpreter
| that the system() function invokes.  That interpreter can optionally
| process #!, as provided by this text in the shell command language
| description:``[I]f the first line of a file of shell commands starts with
| the characters #!, the results are unspecified.''

  This is incorrect for many systems, probably all reasonably modern
  systems.  #! is processed by the kernel as just another magic number for
  executabies, not by the shell, anymore.  Processing #! in the shell was
  an old hack until it could get into the kernel, the smart way for new
  functionality to be added.

  Another way to find one's "home directory" is to require an environment
  variable to hold the home directory of the system.

  A better way than all this would be a system call to request the full
  path name of one's executable.  That, of course, does not exist.
  Sometimes, Unix really sucks.

///
-- 
  The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture
  has taught you.  Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are
  more important to you than those in your past ever will be.  The world is
  changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.