[watersb]

Classic Mac OS aliases are similar to shortcuts on Windows; they are not symbolic links but rather actual files that record the path to the target.

I want to call such aliases "normal" files, as opposed to a link, but the path description is saved in the Resource Fork of the file, not the Data fork.

Resolving an alias can involve network path traversal. You can make an alias of a file on an AFP volume and save it locally, and the next time you use the alias the volume will be auto mounted if necessary. I think you can get similar behavior from other OS configurations.

I seem to recall that if you move or rename a file, the system will update the alias for you. It can't always figure this out. But it will try. That's something you might not see elsewhere...

I've forgotten why AppleScript returns alias objects instead of strings.