Initialization file

The LispWorks User Guide and the readme-5-0.pdf that came with LWP  
5.0 Mac refer to an initialization file, which by default  
is .lispworks in my home directory. This file allows me to do such  
radical things as have more than one editor window, which seems like  
a very appealing thing to me.

Apparently files that begin with "." are invisible. Am I right in  
thinking that a sane person would use LispWorks>Preferences to change  
this default choice?

And if so, would it not make more sense to set this up in a less  
confusing way to a new user? (And would someone reassure me that  
LispWorks will not waste my time with lots more challenges like these?)

Laughing Water

Re: Initialization file

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 17:47:34 -0600, Laughing Water <lw@mt.net> wrote:

> Apparently files that begin with "." are invisible. Am I right in
> thinking that a sane person would use LispWorks>Preferences to
> change this default choice?

Why?  On Unix, it is pretty usual to name application initialization
files with names that begin with a dot precisely because they are
invisible.  AFAIK, Mac OS X aspires to be a Unix.

Re: Initialization file


> So I can find the file through the Finder and edit it. Why would I  
> want it to be invisible?
> 
> 

Well, one reason is so you don't delete the file in error. In *nixes, it's so easily to invoke the un-"undo"-able "rm" command. Because config files are important and you don't want to tamper with them  unless you know exactly what you exactly what you're doing. Making them invisible helps to ensure that: you won't do "ls -a" unless you want to see the hidden files ...

Raheem

Re: Initialization file

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:33:03 -0600, Laughing Water <lw@mt.net> wrote:

> So I can find the file through the Finder and edit it. Why would I
> want it to be invisible?

Apart from not deleting it accidentally, it won't clutter up your
normal view of your home directory.  On one of my Linux machines it
looks like this:

  edi@miles:~$ ls -l | wc -l
  23
  edi@miles:~$ ls -la | wc -l
  88

That means there are 65 configuration files and directories that I
usually don't want to see.

I think the question that you're actually asking is not whether
LispWorks' choice for naming the init file was sane, but why OS X by
default hides files that start with a dot.  If that disturbs you,
there's probably (like on Windows) an option to show these files.

Re: Initialization file

On 20 Aug 2006, at 00:47, Laughing Water wrote:

> Apparently files that begin with "." are invisible. Am I right in  
> thinking that a sane person would use LispWorks>Preferences to  
> change this default choice?

No.  Because you probably don't want to see the dozens of application  
configuration files & directories that litter your home directory.   
That's why Unix hides files & directories whose name begins with a .  
character.

I think the underlying question here is that LW does the standard  
Unix thing - store runtime config stuff in a . file, while OSX  
applications tend to put things in ~/Library/Preferences, which is  
really just another way of hiding them, neither better nor worse.

--tim

Re: Initialization file

Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> writes:

>> In fact, I think the OSXish thing to do would be to have a
>> preferences file which controlled stuff like Window positions & so
>> on, and have the . file be a separate thing.  The preferences file
>> could, I suppose, have an option to control where the . file was
>> looked for.
>
> ...or there could be a menu item "Edit initialization file".

Both your wishes are already fullfilled :-)

>From the program menu (LispWorks-menu), select "Preferences". You can
then change the name and location of the initialization file. And if
you select a new file, LispWorks asks you whether you want to visit
that file!
-- 
  (espen)