Re: aliasitis in surfraw

[Marc Espie <espie%nerim.net@localhost>]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 02:09:37PM +0100, David Brownlee wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2008, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 02:08:54PM +0200, Lubomir Sedlacik wrote:
>>> Hello Ignatios,
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 02:03:25PM +0200, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
>>>> It's not the first time i've been bitten by advanced aliasitis
>>>> conflicting with older programs that I'm using.
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> Now it's the debianized surfraw, installing a symbolic link called
>>>> "sr" for no added value, conflicting with the compiler from "lang/sr".
>>>>
>>>> Now, this is a problem for me, as I'm maintaining sr, and using
>>>> surfraw.
>>>>
>>>> I'll split the "surfraw" package into surfraw-base, being the sane
>>>> subset, create a conflicting (but declared!) surfraw-sr for the
>>>> Debian lovers, and, btw, add "surfraw-netbsd" which adds back
>>>> "netbsd -pr" (unless somebody complains very loudly).
>>>
>>> Why don't you just remove the conflicting alias (and add the netbsd
>>> script or what was it)?  Splitting up the package looks like a lot
>>> of work for very little to no gain.  Just keep it simple.
>>
>> But - won't the Debianites complain if I did that?
>
>       Make it an option?

Don't make options, not for trivial stuff.

Don't design by committee, make decisions.

Design by committee is the main source of unneeded complexity in computer
stuff.  You don't have to give the user choices for *every* single things.

Sometimes, simpler *is* better.