Re: renaming scripts provided by upstream
Bas Zoetekouw <bas@debian.org> writes:
> I think policy tries make sure there are no "foo.pl" or "bla.sh" scripts
> in the path, regardless of what they are symlinked to. I don't know
> what the rationale behind that is though (apart from the ugliness).
> And in any case, it's a SHOULD, so there can be exceptions to the rule.
The rationale is that programs are changed or reimplemented, and by adding
a file extension the implementation language becomes part of the API.
When foo.sh is rewritten in Python, do you keep calling it foo.sh and
confuse everyone, or rename it to foo.py and break all callers?
The implementation language shouldn't be part of the public API for a
command. The user doesn't care what language something is written in.
(There are exceptions, which is part of why it's a should and not a must.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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