[csw-maintainers] Alternatives

[Sebastian Kayser]

Philip Brown wrote on 18.12.2009 22:11:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski
> <maciej at opencsw.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> wrote:
>>> I like the concept of the alternatives system. I'm suggesting we
>>> implement debian normal behavior, and then *augment* it, to be better.
>>> Such as, including a short-command invocation.
>> If I sent CSWalternatives as is for release, what would you say?
>>
> 
> I would say, "please add a symlink for a shorter name to type, and I'd
> be happy to drop it in" :-)
> 
> Otherwise, if you wished to argue aobut it, then things get complicated.
> Given that this is a proposed addition to the standard CSW toolset,
> its very important to make at "all it can be", as it were :-)
> It's not my decision alone, but I'd want to have a decent open
> discussion/vote on it. either via the board, or the maintainer list.
> 
> As a pre-argument I would mention: what strong argument do you have
> for specifically NOT putting it in?  It in no way detracts from the
> functionality, and it definately enhances it. It also allows us to
> give it a bit more csw personality at the same time, which is an
> additional bonus.
> 
> Not to mention it is a trivial amount of work to do. Just add a symlink.

A slight concern of mine would be: besides the symlink, it is another
invocation method that one has to keep in mind. update-alternatives on
it's own is canonical and well-known from Debian, add cswua (or similar)
to the mix and it will introduce ambiguity when people start talking
about tools.

In the end I would bet you a crate of beer that there are more OpenCSW
users who would potentially be exposed to update-alternatives/cswua and
ambiguity than there are OpenCSW users who are currently exposed to
non-autocompletion-shells. ;)

Sebastian