UNIX Arcana [was Re: Perl (or Unix vs. MS, actually) ]

[pll at lanminds.com]

In a message dated: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 16:43:36 EDT
bscott at ntisys.com said:

>  I believe it was Ken Thompson, and I believe the remark was intended to be
>humorous.  Step back and ask: Why would he spell "create" as "creat" in the
>first place?  If you are going to type five characters, you might as well
>type six.  The reason it was spelled "creat" in the first place was the
>linked only supported five characters.  That has caused much
>head-scratching, question-asking, and recompiling-due-to-typos; hence the
>remark about the spelling.

Okay, I'll buy that, but why create a linker that only supports 5 
character function names? What was it which caused this scenario?
I guess I don't fully understand the role of linkers, if this should 
be an obvious thing :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
--
	It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.

	 If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!