Message-Id: <9311092116.AA11931@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
In-Reply-To:  <93Nov9.122925mst.95599@relay.Phys.UAlberta.Ca>; from "Michael
              Barr" at Nov 9, 93 12:13 pm
Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 93 14:11:58 -0700
From: Michal Jaegermann <michal@GORTEL.PHYS.UALBERTA.CA>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      "Smiley faces" considered harmful
Status: R


I wrote:
> >  If we could get rid off some deficient OSes, MS-DOS
> > in the first place, then our life would be so much simpler.
which caused a response:
>
> Yes, and it would have the added advantage of getting rid of 3/4 of
> all tex users, and imagine how much trouble that would save the rest
> of you.
>
> Michael Barr
>

Are we really at the stage when an obvious jest, without half ton
of :-), is taken at a face value?

It is quite conceivable that 3/4 is a low estimate, though other
systems tend to have more users on one machine.  In case somebody
forgot, taking over 25% of characters from mono-case 8 character names
by reserving two characters for a prefix was one of reasons I
protested against this 'nf' prefix business in the first place.  As
far as I am concerned personally, file names can be 100 characters
long and longer, mixed case, file systems can be very deep and
environment variables can take all the space you want.  This does not
change the fact that some have different needs and we try very hard to
remain portable.

  Michal