Re: policy on editor/pager support

[Scott Ellis <storm@gate.net>]

On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Dale Scheetz wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Scott Ellis wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > 
> > > This seems much more complex than necessary. I don't see any reason that
> > > EDITOR and PAGER can't be guaranteed to exist on the system. (Have the
> > > base system provide them in /etc/profile)
> > 
> > Still doesn't handle what happens if they go away.  
> 
> How does /usr/bin/editor do any better? It can "go away" just as easily?

Talking about the EDITOR and PAGER variables going away, not the program
they refer to (which is the admin's fault)


> > just formalizes what many packages already did, used EDITOR or PAGER if
> > they were set, and if not fell back on something. 
> 
> And, if /etc/profile were guaranteed to contain "sane" values for these
> variables (provided by the base install) what is the need to "fall back"? 

So who decides what is sane and puts them in /etc/profile or
/etc/cshrc.login?

> >                                                   However, lots of stuff
> > fell back on vi and more rather than something more elegant, we just
> > provide something more elegant, so stuff uses less by default (if
> > available), as well as something more intuitive than vi.  (of course if
> > the admin WANTS to use more and vi, they can do that too)
> 
> With update-alternatives the last package installed with the highest
> priority becomes the default editor. This will only guarantee that most
> folks will get the editor they don't want ;-)

So they can set EDITOR.  But the default will work for those who don't set
it.


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