ading Postscript files

[John Chambers]

| One ordinarily runs tools and utilities out of the search path, but not full
| blown applications.  If this is really an issue, then the parent executable can
| be replaced by a shell script that first sets the current directory and then
| invokes the original parent executable.

True, but not relevant for something like ghostview. This is a program
which  looks like a single, "simple" command to a user, and it must be
able to read files from the viewpoint of the user.  It's only function
is to display postscript files. If I called "ghostview foo.ps", and it
cd'd to some remote directory and then announced that it couldn't find
foo.ps, it would have failed to do the only thing it was called to do.
It must run in my current directory, for the filenames I  give  it  to
make any sense.

Calling it a "full blown application"  isn't  much  consolations  when
you've wasted a lot of time hunting down failures. After all, "cat" is
also a full blown application, as is any standalone program.   I'd  be
disappointed  with a version of ls which handled "ls ." by giving me a
list of the files in /usr/bin or some other system directory.