Unix handles file extensions "very poorly"? - Re: Mac/Mac Programming/Cocoa/HyperTalk Books free - Melbourne

15 Dec 2011

...
   ...and, in
recent years, OSes have strated refusing to let users
 change their shells to user-provided programs (a longstanding peeve
 of mine, exacerbated by the broken design of the API behind it).  Really?  There
are OSes that don't let you change the shell?  Which
 ones? 
Most of them, by this time.  Check the documentation for
getusershell(3); if it exists, the OS is part of the precipitate.

New shells have to be specifically blessed by the admin.  (Hmm,
actually, by someone who can write /etc/shells.  I suppose an admin
could chmod 666 /etc/shells, which would fix much of the problem it was
supposedly invented to fix and still let people use shells of their
choosing.  The problem then becomes all the external software written
by people who don't realize what a horrible idea getusershell() is....)

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Unix handles file extensions "very poorly"? - Re: Mac/Mac Programming/Cocoa/HyperTalk Books free - Melbourne