Re: update-alternatives.
On 26-Feb-00, 19:51 (CST), Jordi <jordi@sindominio.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 26, 2000 at 05:14:09PM -0800, Seth R Arnold wrote:
> > Jordi, I imagine if you set the priority the same as joe's, and nothing
> > breaks, then go with it. :) I imagine the maintainer of joe did the
> > right thing. Hehe. :)
>
> Umh. The thing is there is "an issue" with the priority in the alternative
> system. Who decides which editor goes first? This should be documented in
> the policy, I guess. Um. I think I'll cc: just in case.
The way the priorities were set was that all the editor package
maintainers got together and hashed it out. Unfortunately, I can't find
the messages now...maybe someone else has them archived?
The general philosophy (if I remember correctly) was the following:
1. X editors had negative priorities, console/text had positive:
/usr/bin/editor was mostly likely to be invoked my another program (e.g.
MUA), and we don't want to be trying to pop up an X editor unless there
is no other choice.
2. For things that have multiple clones (vi, emacs), the "standard"
implementations had a *lower* priority than the optionals: since nvi and
emacs were likely to be installed, if someone specifically installed vim
or xemacs, then they probably prefer that.
After that, we just kind of went through the list until everybody was
happy (a remarkably short cycle, as I remember). For what it's worth, I
don't think *every* editor (even at the time) was on the list -- I think
we just used the ones most likely to be somebody's desired default. Of
course nano should be there: pico is popular, even if I never been able
to understand the appeal :-).
Steve "what do you mean, 'vi isn't intuitive?'" Greenland
--
Steve Greenland <vmole@swbell.net>
(Please do not CC me on mail sent to this list; I subscribe to and read
every list I post to.)
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