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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!foxhound.dsto.gov.au!fang.dsto.gov.au!yoyo.aarnet.edu.au!myall.awadi.com.au!myall!blymn From: blymn@mallee.awadi.com.au (Brett Lymn) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: Re: modification to /sbin/ping Date: 25 Sep 1993 03:17:09 GMT Organization: AWA Defence Industries Lines: 30 Message-ID: <BLYMN.93Sep24211709@mallee.awadi.com.au> References: <1868@optigfx.optigfx.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mallee.awadi.com.au In-reply-to: mrm@optigfx.com's message of 21 Sep 93 21:48:00 GMT >>>>> On 21 Sep 93 21:48:00 GMT, mrm@optigfx.com (Mike Murphy) said: [nice idea about making ping return a 1 status on unreachable] Mike> Mike> would work. This would be convenient. It would work and would be convenient. This change is of the same order that me and another guy had quite a while ago (not on a *BSD system) about making make not require a tab before commands in rules but rather use whitespace. All was fine until we tried to use the make files on another system - they died badly. We relented and un-hacked our version of make. The moral of the story is non-standard breaks things horribly when you move out of the non-standard environment, so if you have a script that relies on the return value of ping and you try to use that script on a system where ping always returns 0 you will have a broken script. Go with the zen of life, contemplate one architecture computing and see that history will grind you to a pulp if you get in it's way :-) Mike> I'm hesitant to suggest this change because the last Mike> few people who suggested that behavior other than Mike> stock BSD might be good were burned at the stake... Consider yourself mildly toasted. -- Brett Lymn