Hello CHARLES.

12 Dec 03 03:21, you wrote to ROY J. TELLASON:

 RJT>> That doesn't mean that tar still can't be a useful tool,
 RJT>> though.

 CA> It's a hammer created where a screwdriver was what was required.

The only point of using tar is that it can generate an archive seqentially,
without seeking as seking is _REALLY_ SLOW on a tape device. Try RARing or
ZIPing something directly to a tape device and you'll see :)

So it really was a hammer when a hammer is needed the problem is that
nowadays some people try to use it as a screwdriver :)

Also, someone mentioned tar being able to work wihout a filesystem,
actually almost any program under linux that stores it's stuff into one
file can wotk directly with devices (w/o a FS) try ZIPing something to
/dev/fd and it will work fine.

Viktor

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