Re: xg (Re: virtual package (x-)editor ?)
On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Steve Greenland wrote:
> On 29-Nov-01, 09:17 (CST), Tomas Pospisek <tpo2@spin.ch> wrote:
> > Um, yes. That's xemacs. But I don't need xemacs but just "an x editor".
> > That means any x editor that's around or else x-terminal-emulator -e
> > sensible-editor (which is actually IMHO not *very* sensible - presented
> > with f.ex. vi a "normal human" being will at most be able to reset the box
> > in question).
>
> Then that person should (and probably *has*) set EDITOR to point to
> something more to their liking.
Ack. But I'm talking about "normal human beings" that per definition (see
above) are not (yet) able to set an EDITOR variable nor do they know what
it's for. An advanced user doesn't need to bother with the
"sensible-editor script anyway since s/he's got the EDITOR variable in the
first place.
> The whole point of the Debian editor policy (and the sensible-editor
> script) is to allow the *user* to determine what editor they use.
> Alternatives and virtual packages *cannot* do that: they work at the
> system level.
The base system can depend on a virtual package "editor" which would force
the user or the sysadmin to decide for a default editor he wants to
use/provide for the system.
And as soon as the admin installs a different editor that would
replace the other one the postscript/debconf can still ask:
"do you want to replace the default editor by this one?"
And this would not influence the decision of the geek-user which is as
knowledgeable as to set EDITOR. It would only influence the "n h b" and
let the sysadmin give him a easier to use (f.ex.) editor.
But the idea of packages is to provide some functionality and as I
understood it "virtual packages" are there to provide some abstractly
defined functionality ("editor file") so that other programms that
depend on such a functionality can say so. Which is my concern.
*t
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Tomas Pospisek
SourcePole - Linux & Open Source Solutions
http://sourcepole.ch
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