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

[Shawn Walker]

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 7:55 PM, Bart Smaalders <bart.smaalders at sun.com> wrote:
> Joseph Kowalski wrote:
>  > Bart Smaalders wrote:
>  >> /usr/bin/ contains:
>  >>
>  >> gnect
>  >> gnibbles
>  >> gnobots
>  >> gnome-sudoku
>  >> gnotravex
>  >> gnomine
>  >> gnotski
>  > Thanks for the information.
>  >
>  > It provides more justification that we are just giving lipservice to
>  > Linux familiarity.  We "just know better", more politely termed NIH.
>  >
>  > Yes, Jim did talk about sorting by some arbitrary criteria.  As I
>  > said in my last mail, there are several camps around this and we
>  > will have this discussion again and again.  Its not the important
>  > issue, Linux familiarity is.
>  >
>  > It is interesting to note, that the discussion often is about
>  > what (historically and somewhat well defined semanticall) "bin"
>  > something belongs in.  I seem to recall a lot of items which seemed
>  > to be fit in /usr/sbin (by the endorsed semantic) were proposed
>  > to be placed in /usr/bin, because that's where they can be found
>  > on Linux.
>
>  No.
>
>  We tried to come to some sort of closure on this when someone derailed
>  my nmap case, and articulate a clear set of rules... but it was insisted
>  upon that the case not set precedent.
>
>  As far as I'm concerned, the logic is simple:
>
>  1) if only root can use the command, it belongs in /usr/sbin which is
>  in root's default path.

Don't you mean "if only a privileged user"? :-)

>  2) If the command is generally useful, it belongs in /usr/bin.
<snip>
>  As we repeatedly discussed during the Enabling Serendipitous Discovery case,
>  placing commands in separate directories does very little good, and tends to
>  do harm.

The only thing that bothers me about it is the inevitable naming
conflicts and the slow, but inevitable performance degradation, and
information overload caused by having tens of thousands of executables
all in the same directory.

The whole /usr/bin thing on GNU/Linux distributions is something I've
never been happy about since I started using it in 1995/1996.

However, most GNU/Linux folks seem to treat $PATH as anathema. I'm not
sure how to have a well organised system and avoid using $PATH at the
same time if everything is going to get dumped in /usr/bin.

Most of the time, if I'm running a game, it isn't going to be from the
command line -- it would be from a shortcut on my "desktop."

Do I really want game executables polluting my "finger memory" via
tab-completion as I'm trying to actually administrate the system?

I know there's no easy answer here, but I do wonder where this is all headed.

-- 
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/

"To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." -
Robert Orben