28 Nov
2017
28 Nov
'17
12:18 p.m.
Hi Andrew,
The thing that I wonder about was why ">"
wasn't used as the directory
separator when paths were added to Unix, since that's what Multics
used.
A slash has long been used to separate items in a hierarchy, e.g.
division, department, staff initials, or account, purchase-order number,
at least back to the early twentieth century. So choosing it might have
seemed natural.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)#Presenting_routes
And Multics had some kind of `attach' and `detach' of I/O streams, well
known to Ossanna, so perhaps dup(2), and a Thompson-shell syntax to go
with it meant `>' was earmarked early on.
--
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy