Re: Future of /usr/bin/which in Debian?
On Sun, Sep 19, 2021 at 05:32:04PM +0100, Wookey wrote:
> I must admit that I have no idea why replacing such a longstanding
> utility is deemed necessary.
Maybe this riddle will help.
Imagine that you are the product manager for Debian `which`. According
to the hatemail in my inbox, this is the most important utility in the
history of time, such that even printing a warning to stderr causes
global devastation, block hints, and calls for impeachment. So, it
makes sense for this to be a full-time job, though perhaps you manage
another, less significant utility as well.
You go on a Gemba walk, and discover you have several user personas
amongst your customers:
(a) wants GNU `which`, to have feature parity with Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(b) wants FreeBSD `which`, to have feature parity with FreeBSD
(c) wants nothing ever to change, and the xiafs removal from Linux 2.1.21
to be reverted
(d) wants there to be exactly one version of `which` (except for all the
shell builtins) so that alternatives won't confuse and complicate things
Wearing your customer-centricity hat, what is the optimal set of
personas to unperson so that you can implement a solution that works
for everyone who still matters?
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