Nethack 3.4.3 [PSARC/2008/172 FastTrack timeout 03/11/2008]

[Joseph Kowalski]

OK, this is approved, so this is just a comment.

I'm also not questioning if this should be included or not (but if it is 
included as
a throwback to old UNIX nostalgia, where is "fortune"?  :-) )

Danek Duvall wrote:
> 3.  Interfaces
>
>     /usr/bin/nethack      Uncommitted        Executable location, CLI
>     /usr/lib/nethack      Project Private    Game data directory
>     /var/games            Committed          Writeable area for games
>     /var/games/nethack    Uncommitted        Writeable area for nethack
>     games                 Committed          group name
>   
 From filesystem(5):

     /usr/games

         An empty directory,  a  remnant  of  the  SunOS  4.0/4.1
         software.

So, /usr/games is an imported interface, abet with a lame semantic.  That's
however somewhat the nit of all nits.

Now, if I remember right (and I may not), this was the "bin" equivalent for
games.  If that's true, shouldn't this be place for nethack, the executable?

If that doesn't convince you, perhaps the fact that the place this is 
found on Linux
(specifically Ubuntu) is /usr/games. Aren't we supposed to be *all* 
about compatibility
(when possible) with Linux?

As an aside, I was rather surprised about all the variants of nethack
available on Ubuntu's repository.  EMACs, lisp, qt, X11, gnome,...
just to name a few. I was disappointed to find out that jnethack was the
Japanese version rather than a Java version.

Anyway, in the interest of Linux compatibility I'd encourage the
project team to follow that (somewhat big) rule.

(Note: Ubuntu has no /usr/bin/foo -> ../games/foo links. Ignore the
fact that /usr/games seems to be in the default path.)

I didn't look where Ubuntu (et.al.) places hethack datafiles and such.
Where ever they place them, we should just do the same.

- thanks for listening,

- jek3