Jerry Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Another issue is that the Unix server at Northeastern is going away in > the spring, and the school is pondering how to teach Unix. While I would > prefer a dual boot (or VMWare) solution with Windows and Linux, Cygwin > appears to be a pretty decent solution if you can't have a real Unix > system, and a good solution for students who only have Windows on their > home computers.
Well, I dunno. cygwin might be a nice crutch for those students who are learning shell scripting, Makefiles, Perl, etc. but for those who are interested in learning the Unix/Posix API, cygwin can't hide the underlying details enough to cause these to not be an issue that needs to be dealt with. For example: every student of Unix learns that file descriptors are small and semi-contiguous in value -- but under the win32 API, this isn't true. If your code depends on this being true, it will break under the win32 API. Etc. --kevin -- "The basic fact remains: the much-heralded POSIX compliance of WindowsNT is a mere sophistry since you cannot *usefully* access the POSIX functionality from your WindowsNT applications. The goal of POSIX as a portable operating systems standard has been thrown out the Window and placed in that ludicrous little padded cell called the POSIX subsystem, a lonely little room without doors -- and more importantly, without Windows." -- Tom Christiansen _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
