The "Shutdown" command (Was some flame war)

[Pim Blokland <pDOTblokland@spcgroup.nl>]

Forrest wrote:
> 
>> Hrrrmmm...my Mac always spits the floppy disk out automatically when I
>> choose "Shut Down" from the Finder's 'Special' Menu. Which, incidentally,
>> is the proper way to shut down a Mac (not just flipping the on/off switch

Hm... although at first glance this issue seems terribly off-topic, all
the reader has to do is replace "Mac" with "IIgs" to get on track again.
So we'll keep at it.

> Which, I feel obliged to say, is the most stupid intentional design
> flaw ever foisted on the computing public.  Since power failures can
> happen at any time, and since total system lockups can happen
> at any time, the only rational way to design a
> computer system is to keep things as stable as possible as much of the
> time as possible; instead Apple seems to have gone out of its way to do

That's not fair. Nobody can devise a scheme that protects data from
being corrupted if the computer powers down while it is writing to disk.
Accidents happen, and you surely can't blame Apple for not being able to
work miracles.
So, whether the computer was turned off by incident, or on purpose, you
always have the chance that it was turned of at a "bad" moment (i.e.
with the disk directory not exactly corresponding to the actual disk's
contents).
So I think it's a good idea to give the user the opportunity to MINIMIZE
the chances of a scrambled disk (by implementing a command that flushes
all disk buffers etc) if they can't make absolutely sure that nothing
will go wrong. Right?

> First it forces you to shut down by the emergency power button on the
> back, and then at restart complains that you did so.

Hm? Oh, now you ARE talking about a Mac. Well, on a Mac, the user has
the choice of turning this warning off. On a GS, the user does not have
this choice. And I can imagine circumstances where the warning can be
helpful, i.e. to determine whether there has been a power outage while
you weren't present.

Oh yes, and finally, I often turn my computers (the Apples and the Mac)
off without using the Shutdown command, and never have any problems with
my files when I start them up the next time. Only when programs hang
themselves up while they are saving files, do I encounter disk
corruption after a restart.
-- 
Pim Blokland
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