From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 10 May 2001 19:52:57 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 10 May 2001 19:52:47 -0400 Received: from intranet.resilience.com ([209.245.157.33]:17619 "EHLO intranet.resilience.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 10 May 2001 19:52:44 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200105102320.f4ANKYu21655@habitrail.home.fools-errant.com> In-Reply-To: <200105102320.f4ANKYu21655@habitrail.home.fools-errant.com> Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:52:49 -0700 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Jonathan Lundell Subject: Re: Not a typewriter Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org At 7:20 PM -0400 2001-05-10, Hacksaw wrote: > >I disagree. "Not a typewriter" is part of Unix tradition, and ought to be >>retained as a historical reference. It's also an opportunity for "the >>uninitiated" to learn a little more and move a little closer to becoming "the >>initiated." > >Heaven help us when tradition is more important than clarity. > >Typewriter has always been wrong. I'd agree that "Not a teletypewriter" would >suffice. > >On the other hand "Inappropriate ioctl for device" is also not very clear. > >I'd like to see "Not a serial or character device" or "Not a serial device" if >that's more appropriate. Something like that... ENOTTY is used by several non-serial devices (or file systems) to object to an unrecognized ioctl command. There's also ENOIOCTLCMD (apparently supposed to be a non-user errno, but i don't see where it gets changed to something else) and EINVAL. I'm not sure what the rationale is for choosing among them; perhaps someone would elucidate? -- /Jonathan Lundell.