> True, and that's fine by me too, I really started with the assumption
> that somewhere in the not too distant past, somebody had slipped in
> transcribing the man pages :-)  Seeing as it is an ancient design
> error, there is nothing to it but to accept it.

Argh, I am sorry to perpetuate this thread, but I really have to place
a vote in favor of the historical behavior. I don't think it's an error.

It is how you implement a command line that accepts either commands or
pathnames to programs, with no ambiguity between the two unless you
deliberately add "." to your PATH.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com