Bug#34652: PROPOSAL] Policy is not clear about nawk.

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Sun, 30 May 1999, Julian Gilbey wrote:

> > Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > > Does anyone expect there to be a nawk program?  If so, this suggestion
> > > is moot.  If not, we can probably just do away with it.
> > 
> > Debian currently has five nawk scripts:
> > 
> > /usr/sbin/mk-accessdb and /usr/sbin/mk-relaydb in sharc
> > /usr/doc/texmf/mkhtml.nawk in tetex-base
> > /usr/doc/vim-rt/examples/tools/mve.awk in vim-rt
> > /usr/bin/zone-file-check in zone-file-check
> > 
> > I see no reason to refrain from keeping the nawk link around.
> > I also don't think this is a matter of policy; it should be up to
> > the awk package maintainers.
> > 
> > Richard Braakman
> 
> Fair enough.  Then I suggest that this bug report is closed: the
> reason that we need awk is that some programs expect a nawk program to
> be present.

I see things differently: The reason we need nawk is that some people
expect a new awk to be available *under the name nawk*.

However, since every awk in the system is always a new awk and it is
always available as awk, we could standarise the expectations and declare
that every time a program in a Debian system needs any awk (either old or 
new), /usr/bin/awk should be used.

What's wrong with trying to standarise things?

In a Debian system, we have already standarised that perl should be in
/usr/bin.  We have already standarised that perl is perl version 5.
Why can't we standarise the fact that /usr/bin/awk is a "new awk"?

Thanks.

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