RS/6000 error msgs (Was: Re: RS/6000 survey - will post summary)

[Jason Martin Levitt]

In article <1698 at ks.UUCP> drake at ibmarc.uucp (Sam Drake) writes:
>
>In article <1990May6.212646.20580 at cs.utk.edu> moore at cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore) writes:
>>Or how about the
>>fact that nearly all of the utilities now have verbose error messages,
>>even when the old terse message was sufficient?  
>
>1.  If you want to see old terse messages, issue:
>
>    export LANG=C
>
> [stuff deleted]
>
>2.  Who decides when an "old terse message is sufficient"?  Were they
>    sufficient to secretaries?  Or just to hackers?  

[LANG=En_US]  ksh: kjj: 0403-016 Cannot find or open the file.
[LANG=C]      ksh: kjj: cannot open

[LANG=En_US]  0506-764 ln: /tmp: Cannot use this command with a directory.
[LANG=C]      ln : </tmp> directory

 Canonicalizing all the error msgs by assigning them numbers and more
verbose explanations isn't such a bad idea, but it will hardly make
the system usable by secretaries. It does nothing to prevent an
accidental "rm *" or hide the details of the filesystem from the user.
Secretaries will run Motif and shrink-wrapped applications in
which case they will probably never [want to] use Unix shells. And they
shouldn't need to.
 The big gain here will be made by IBM SEs who will now be able to
look up customers' complaints by the error number.

>Nor, apparently, does your installation want C2 security in it's
>operating system, which neither UCB nor AT&T ship today.  
>
    I haven't heard about IBM shipping *anything* on a Powerstation
yet. You can buy SunOS 4.1 *today* which is B2 certified.
And AT&T is advertising System V/MLS which is B1
certified -- I don't know if it's shipping yet. 
    If security is important to you, you sure don't want to go with
a measly C2 rated system.

      ---Jason
-----

Jason Martin Levitt    P.O. Box 49860  Austin, Texas 78765  (512) 459-0055
Internet: jason at cs.utexas.edu         | "Disneyland exemplifies the essence of
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