[ih] Unix vs. Multics (was - Re: what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol)

[larrysheldon at cox.net (Larry Sheldon)]

On 8/22/2016 22:25, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
>

>> On Aug 22, 2016, at 6:14 PM, John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
>>
>> Unix systems have hard links, which are fully synonymous names for
>> the same file
>
> That's where the metaphor falls apart. English language metaphors
don't vanish when the words they direct towards vanish. Sometimes, they
take over for the abandoned target.
>
> Symlinks are aliases, perhaps. But they aren't synonyms. Not in the
context of spoken language.

I was taught (by some long forgotten somebody) there were [hard] "links" 
and "symbolic lings".

-- 
"Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by
its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole
life believing that it is stupid."

--Albert Einstein

 From Larry's Cox account.