Another reason I prefer not to work on Windows

[mithriltabby]

Microsoft have mostly coped with the difference between how they like \ for a path separator while the Unix world prefers / by making user-mode paths usually work with either kind of slash. (They still use backslashes in the kernel.) Since \ is also a popular quote character, it is very convenient to just use slash-paths whenever possible so there isn’t any hassle when going between different shells that might or might not decide to interpret \ has having special meaning. Normally, this just works. But then there are the times that it doesn’t:

C:\Temp\foo>c:/windows/system32/xcopy.exe /f /r /i /d /y * ..\bar\
Invalid number of parameters

C:\Temp\foo>c:\windows\system32\xcopy.exe /f /r /i /d /y * ..\bar\
C:\Temp\foo\blah -> C:\Temp\bar\blah
1 File(s) copied

The same problem will occur if it’s getting the path to c:\windows\system32 from the PATH environment variable, making it utterly unclear as to why the command is failing.

If I ever take a job at a Windows-only shop, I am going to insist on a serious salary bump for hazard pay.

Microsoft Windows Hatred Status

LOATHE

Their developers are smoking advanced experimental prototype monkey crack again.

Comments

[redwoodstrega.livejournal.com]

Um, not all of their developers are smoking crack, I know some. Most of the BS comes from the higher ups in Seattle.