Re: [UUG/MLUG] Running C programs

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Sun, 2 Jan 2000, Kmicic wrote:

> The author of this thread implied this is for a home system with one
> user.  I dont pretend to be unix security expert 

(me neither; I only pass on what I've seen or heard of first hand)

> but a little bit of common sense in setting up one's own home system
> always goes a long way.  If you're THAT paranoid, why not just alias
> "sl" in the rc file? -P.

Good questions.  Again, I mentioned that common sense on a given question
differs between people, and I know that the "should . be on my path?"
question is one of those.  But I *have* seen situations where this has
proven to be a problem, the work around (typing two extra characters) is
trivial, and I've found through the years that consistency is a really
desirable thing for me.  Let me explain the last one:

Sure, I might have a box at home where I'm the only user, and I could
probably afford to be pretty sloppy there.  But I also have accounts in
places where paranoia is a far more rational stance.  It's generally
easier for me to be consistent than to guess at what's reasonable where,
or, (dare I say it?) remember exactly where I "am" at the moment.

Now, there's also the point about aliasing a bunch of possible typos in
you .*rc file.  I've done that before, actually, and it can work
reasonably enough, if you keep with it.  But it doesn't scale as well as
you'd like, and it doesn't (necessarily) give you any feedback that you
actually mistyped something.  

And, in general, having . on your path doesn't give you the positive
feedback of having to type ./ before something you just wrote, or
something not ready to be put in your ~/bin directory, or what have you.

And on the subject of paranoia:  No, I don't think that evil beings are
lurking everywhere, waiting to slay you for having dot on your path.  But
my approach is more like the Mark Twain story, where a boy asks a
riverboat captain if he knows where all the dangerous rocks on the
Mississippi are, and he answers:

"No, I'm afraid I don't.  But I do know where they ain't."

jking