On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 20:29 -0300, César Catrián C. wrote:

> > I've been working on an alternatives system for pkgsrc, similar to that
> > found in Debian.  It is not ready yet, but before continuing its
> > development, I'd like to ask for comments here (mainly if you agree to
> > this proposal or not).  (Before thinking "ugh, linux stuff", keep
> > reading ;).
> 
> I think that a new user or an average user, or any kind of unix user, has the
> need to know the difference between vi and vim. And definitely "alternatives" is 
> not a flattery for the people who knows the difference between vi and vim (who 
> are the most people here, I believe).

Can't people understand that the vi/vim case was just an EXAMPLE of
the overall functionality?  I wish I'd never used those two programs.

The goal here is to simplify other stuff that _already was_ in pkgsrc.
Take java-wrapper or python, for example.  These were using custom
scripts/packages to achieve something very similar to alternatives.
java-wrapper was something very specific (which could otherwise be
used in other situations) and IMO, quite ugly (I did it at first).
And as for python, it was not binary friendly, but the current solution
is.

-- 
Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv84@gmail.com>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jmmv/
The NetBSD Project - http://www.NetBSD.org/