SCO 6 (RE: FW: The grand finale)

[Fairlight]

At Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 10:07:15AM -0500 or thereabouts, 
suspect Kenneth Brody was observed uttering:
> However, if your script doesn't start with "#!/bin/sh" (and, honestly,
> how many of you always put the shell there?), and it depends on some

-ALWAYS-.

Unix Programming Rule #1:  Never assume any specific environment exists.

This is especially painful for people that write mail filters, cron jobs,
etc., that soon (or possibly not-so-soon) learn their environment is not
what they assumed it would be.  It's just as painful in situations like
this though.

This rule was drilled into me so hard that I am absolutely incapable of
leaving off the script magic line.  Ever.  People that were "brought up" on
*nix with this tenet in mind really hit far fewer problems than those that
weren't.  I can't actually even accept scripts that use ":" as their magic.
I consider it depricated and unacceptable.

Granted, #! wasn't "new" when I learned *nix.  Well, I'm not sure when that
magic format was introduced.  I started in '89 though on BSD 4.3 Tahoe.

mark->
-- 
There is no "I" in TEAM.
This would be the primary reason I've chosen not to join one.