Re: renamings to remove extensions

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 07:30:44PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> > "Steve M. Robbins" <steve@sumost.ca> writes:
> > 
> > > I agree with Charles: this is unncessary, unproductive busy-work.
> > 
> > The same characterisation could be given to other changes that raise
> > the quality of software in Debian (e.g. ensuring that commands are
> > accompanied by man pages, or that the package synopsis should not be
> > repeated in the extended description).
>
> None of these have an impact on *other* software. Renaming a file
> does.

Peter Eisentraut <petere@debian.org> writes:

> This is not a useful analogy. Software will continue to work with or
> without documentation or description. Renaming programs breaks
> interfaces.

This is a different complaint from “unnecessary, unproductive
busy-work”. I was answering only that complaint.

So, if the change can be made *without* breaking existing interfaces
(e.g. by providing a compatibility symlink to the suffix-less real
program file), then the “breaks interfaces” complaint is addressed and
is no longer an impediment to providing well-named program files.

-- 
 \    “Holy contributing to the delinquency of minors, Batman!” —Robin |
  `\                                                                   |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney