Mark wrote...

>As regards the posix shell. My only real bugbear is that it is soooo slow.
I'm
>sure that over time, this will improve, and that the functionality will be
>enhanced.

Any details? There are a few gotcha's that can be avoided (eg running shell
scripts in an NS/VT session can be much slower than via Telnet or DTC; using
the set -o vi stuff can result in slow-motion type/echo in certain network
and performance contexts due to single-character versus line-mode reads).

On the other hand, shell scripts have an ugly tendency to fork() lots of
child processes (for non-built-in shell commands and utils), so an MPE/iX
command file can sometimes perform *much* better for a similar task.

>Also it would be nice to have an implementation of vi that can use the
>cursor keys. I'm getting used to using the Redhat Linux editor (vim) and find
>the posix one very irritating in that respect.

You just need to add a .exrc file in you home directory with the proper
key mapping commands. See Michael Hensley's "Plug and Play Posix" paper
for details (www.allegro.com).

Lars.