Re: Preferred editor and pager

[blp@pfaff.msu.edu (Ben Pfaff)]

I agree with everything Ian said, which I regret quoting below as a
matter of policy but do anyway for clarity.

> Bruce:
> > I think it's OK to provide a /bin/editor and /bin/pager, but they should
> > be shell programs with this behavior:
> >   [ use VISUAL, EDITOR, PAGER, &c ]
> ....
> >         If the above fails, run the default editor (or pager) from
> >         /etc/alternatives/editor.
> 
> This is suboptimal for two reasons.  Firstly, if VISUAL, EDITOR or
> PAGER is set then /usr/bin/{editor,pager} should not be called - so
> you're adding a copy of a level of indirection at a point where that
> level ought already to have been handled.
> 
> Secondly, /etc/alternatives has as a standard feature that the name in
> /etc/alternatives corresponds to a name somewhere in the rest of the
> filesystem.
> 
> > We should continue to encourage maintainers to have their programs use
> > the environment variables $VISUAL, $EDITOR, and $PAGER.
> 
> Programs that do not do this are defective, and this is easily
> remedied.  It will be simpler to fix the few of these than to contrive
> a separate scheme just for this problem.
> 
> If there _really_ are programs that can't be fixed we can put scripts
> with the functionality you describe in /usr/lib somewhere.

-- 
Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu> 12167 Airport Rd, DeWitt MI 48820, USA
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