Re: Proposal: Add option to add dates to write(1)

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> I think it's a very sane thing to want.  I'm not convinced it's
>> infeasible; I just haven't come up with a way of doing it that I
>> consider reasonably sane [...]
> Fair enough.  Your primary concern seems to be how to decide which
> among zero or more users "associated" with the terminal should
> write(1) pay attention to.

No, zero or more processes.  See below.

> I might have gotten us sidetracked by introducing processes into the
> discussion.  Processes are irrelevant because, as you pointed out,
> we're not notifying processes with write.  We're notifying human
> beings via the terminal.  The only things that matter ISTM are the
> person and the terminal.

Conceptually, I agree.

But if you're trying to express that human preference via environment
variables, that necessarily brings processes into it, because users
don't have environment variables and ttys don't have environment
variables - processes do.

> I see no problem using the preferences of the logged-in user to
> determine the date format of its message notice.  It is both
> technically unambiguous and meets the POLA test.

Agreed...*if* you can find a way to implement it, a way to attach that
preference to the user, without dragging other things into it that
introduce ambiguities (like processes).  There may be such a way, but
so far I haven't come up with, nor seen mentioned, one I think is sane
enough that I consider it even worth trying.

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