[log in to unmask] wrote:
>

> Am I wrong to be disappointed that such a defacto standard would be based
> on
> a C-ism (or Unix-ism) as the "environment variable" ?

No.  Environment variables really have nothing fundamental to do
with C.  I suppose Unix invented the term "environment variable" but
most operating systems have some sort of process context which
includes user-definable variables of some sort.  Things like
current directory, current search path, current user, etc., all
seem most conveniently and consistenly accessible via named variables,
even if there are also special systems calls available for each
as well.

Do you have some general replacement for the concept of "environment
variables" in mind?  Note that Ada 95 has the notion of "task attributes"
which are solving a similar problem (though Ada does not provide
inheritance of task attributes).

> Larry Kilgallen

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-Tucker Taft   [log in to unmask]   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
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