Sorry if I'm seeming dense.
On Winders, I can put an executable anywhere. I can open a folder view on the desktop of that directory, double-click on the icon for the executable, and it'll run. Similarly, I can open a command prompt window and run it there if I'm in the directory where the executable is. It doesn't matter if the directory is on the path or not. It worked the same way on OS/2 and DOS as far as I recall. The command interpreter seems to always start in the current directory even if it's not specified in the path. Thus, the path was only necessary if you didn't start the executable from the current directory.
Why is it different on BSD/Unix/OSX? Does the command interpreter not automatically look for executables in the current directory first? Does the ./ tell the command interpreter to look in the current directory because it won't otherwise? <lightbulb>
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.