On Tue, 16 May 2017 07:59:56 -0400, Peter Relson wrote:

>Maybe it's me, but I found this post kind of inappropriate since it came 
>without caveats. One might think/hope that whoever defined a space as 
>non-cancelale or non-memtermable had a legitimate reason for doing so. 
>That likely isn't of course always true, but isn't that what you really 
>need to assume?
> 
I sense a gradual escalation here.

Long ago, there was the CANCEL command so operators could
terminate troublesome jobs.

But a designer felt that sometimes the programmer knows better,
and provided the non-cancellable attribute.

Then a designer felt that sometimes the operator knows even better
and provided the FORCE command.

Then a designer felt that sometimes the programmer knows even better
and provided the non-forcible attribute.

Now someone feels that operators know better and is providing
a WHACK facility.
...

Perhaps there should be a numeric attribute and a CANCEL command
argument, such that if the value supplied by the operator exceeds the
program's attribute, the CANCEL just works.

Floating point, of course.  Decimal floating point.

The operator will always have the nuclear option.

-- gil

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