[gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Matthew Kennedy]

I know we have virtual/editor etc. but do we have a mechanism to
invoke the users choice in editor?

Not all stuff I've encountered cares about $EDITOR etc., and I ask
because of a recent change in dev-lisp/clisp where i needed to set a
specific editor.

Any volunteers to implement the Debian "alternatives" system?  Or
maybe we just want a /usr/bin/generic-editor...

Matt

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Matthew Kennedy
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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Seemant Kulleen]

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On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 01:38, Matthew Kennedy wrote:
> I know we have virtual/editor etc. but do we have a mechanism to
> invoke the users choice in editor?
> 
> Not all stuff I've encountered cares about $EDITOR etc., and I ask
> because of a recent change in dev-lisp/clisp where i needed to set a
> specific editor.
> 
> Any volunteers to implement the Debian "alternatives" system?  Or
> maybe we just want a /usr/bin/generic-editor...
> 
> Matt

For the slightly clueless, of which I am one, can you explain both
methods?  The /usr/bin/generic-editor in particular piques my interest.

Thanks,

-- 
Seemant Kulleen
Developer and Project Co-ordinator,
Gentoo Linux					http://dev.gentoo.org/~seemant

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Matthew Kennedy]

Seemant Kulleen <seemant@gentoo.org> writes:

> On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 01:38, Matthew Kennedy wrote:
>> I know we have virtual/editor etc. but do we have a mechanism to
>> invoke the users choice in editor?
>> 
>> Not all stuff I've encountered cares about $EDITOR etc., and I ask
>> because of a recent change in dev-lisp/clisp where i needed to set a
>> specific editor.
>> 
>> Any volunteers to implement the Debian "alternatives" system?  Or
>> maybe we just want a /usr/bin/generic-editor...
>> 
>> Matt
>
> For the slightly clueless, of which I am one, can you explain both
> methods?  The /usr/bin/generic-editor in particular piques my
> interest.

Really they are the same thing in the general sense.  IIRC, Debian's
alternative system works like this (arrows are symlinks)

  /usr/bin/editor --> /etc/alternatives/editor

  /etc/alternatives/editor --> /usr/bin/emacs

Just a simple indirection, really.

The cool part is the Debian update-alternatives program.  You run it
like this:

# update-alternatives --config editor
 
There are 3 programs which provide `editor'.
 
  Selection    Command
-----------------------------------------------
*+    1        /usr/bin/nano
      2        /bin/ed
      3        /usr/bin/nvi
 
Enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number:

The "+" indicates the currently selected program. Selecting a new
choice adjusts what that symlink from /etc/alternatives/editor points
to.  This works system-wide of course.

Debian really have got this well integrated into their distro.  The
have alternatives arranged for editors, awks, ftps, infobrowsers,
pagers, telnet clients, java runtimes and sdks, etc.

I think if we really want to continue with our mantra of
customizability, we really need something like this respected portage
wide.

Matt
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Matthew Kennedy
Gentoo Linux Developer

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Brian Friday]

Matthew Kennedy wrote:
> 
> Really they are the same thing in the general sense.  IIRC, Debian's
> alternative system works like this (arrows are symlinks)
> 
>   /usr/bin/editor --> /etc/alternatives/editor 
>   /etc/alternatives/editor --> /usr/bin/emacs
> 
> Just a simple indirection, really.
> 

Redhat implements something similar for their bundled MTA's 
and just like above you just change the "mta" to be your 
favorite.  All the applications which call sendmail are now 
routed to sendmail.exim or sendmail.postfix. This type of 
setup is an elegant way of allowing the user to choose the 
tool they want. Though it could take a bit of legwork to 
find all the places this type of change would work best.

In one sense I see this as being very much like SLOT in 
portage right now (at least as I understand slot as a user) 
but this specific idea while similar goes further than slot 
in some ways and not as far as others.  In a, I don't 
maintain portage so don't know how hard this might be to 
implement brainstorm, maybe enhancing SLOT or the idea 
behind it to do the following. If two ebuilds which deploy 
similar applications are called for and they block each 
other (ie I try to install postfix when exim or qmail are 
already installed). The portage system automatically engages 
"SWITCH" which would then setup the applications to have the 
symlink structure like shown above.

Of course this only works in situations where a block has 
been identified by developers but perhaps (again thinking 
way ahead) doing a scan after the package has been imaged 
(ie /var/tmp/portage/pkgname/image) but before it is merged.

To keep things gentoo-ish we could leverage portage and make 
a "switch" area like:

/etc/switch/net-mail/postfix
/etc/switch/net-mail/exim
/etc/switch/app-editor/emacs
/etc/switch/app-editor/vi

my 2cents

- Brian


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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Brian Friday]

Holy never finished the thought batman! Teaches me to spell 
check before I finish...

---
Of course this only works in situations where a block has 
been identified by developers but perhaps (again thinking 
way ahead) doing a scan after the package has been imaged 
(ie  /var/tmp/portage/pkgname/image) but before it is 
merged. This scan would check to make sure we won't be 
overwriting an application/file with this new ebuild that 
isn't an upgrade or downgrade of the package being built.

---

the full 2cents

- Brian


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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Marius Mauch]

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On 09/10/03  Brian Friday wrote:

> 
> Holy never finished the thought batman! Teaches me to spell 
> check before I finish...
> 
> ---
> Of course this only works in situations where a block has 
> been identified by developers but perhaps (again thinking 
> way ahead) doing a scan after the package has been imaged 
> (ie  /var/tmp/portage/pkgname/image) but before it is 
> merged. This scan would check to make sure we won't be 
> overwriting an application/file with this new ebuild that 
> isn't an upgrade or downgrade of the package being built.

That's exactly what I'm currently working on, I hope once it is finished
and integrated into portage it will reduce the number of 
file collision bugs to near zero.
Also I don't think you mean SLOTs but virtual dependencies like
virtual/mta as SLOTs are package-internal.
For the editor problem I think we can just install a simple wrapper
script that calls $EDITOR, it has the advantage that the default editor
can be changed in one place and needs no change for things that can use
$EDITOR directly.

Marius

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Matthew Kennedy]

Brian Friday <bfriday@lasierra.edu> writes:

> Matthew Kennedy wrote:
>> Really they are the same thing in the general sense.  IIRC, Debian's
>> alternative system works like this (arrows are symlinks)
>>   /usr/bin/editor --> /etc/alternatives/editor
>> /etc/alternatives/editor --> /usr/bin/emacs
>> Just a simple indirection, really.
>> 
>
> Redhat implements something similar for their bundled MTA's and just


> /etc/switch/net-mail/postfix
> /etc/switch/net-mail/exim
> /etc/switch/app-editor/emacs
> /etc/switch/app-editor/vi

I like this per category approach.  

Also I forgot to mention, in Debian's /etc/alternatives system, the
are able to cope with groups of alternatives... for example (and I
know java-config does this already), if you switch from sun's java
compiler to to, say, IBM's then naturally, the others JDK tools such
as the corba server and RMI compiler should also change with it.

It seems like a pretty capable system to me.

Matt

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[C. Brewer]

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On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 20:07:36 -0500
Matthew Kennedy <mkennedy@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >> Not all stuff I've encountered cares about $EDITOR etc., and I ask
> >> because of a recent change in dev-lisp/clisp where i needed to set a
> >> specific editor.
> >> 
> >> Any volunteers to implement the Debian "alternatives" system?  Or
> >> maybe we just want a /usr/bin/generic-editor...
> >> 
> >> Matt

Rather than make Gentoo more like Debian-like (ick!), wouldn't it be simpler
to set the ebuild for clisp to /usr/bin/editor and have src_unpack do a
ln -s $EDITOR /usr/bin/editor, which would give a specific editor while
leaving the $EDITOR variable alone? I think that if we are gonna just absorb
Debian setups, it would be just easier and faster in the long run to port
portage over to Debian and have the ebuilds modify src.debs to build, and
just about kill the need for a distfiles server.

I'm not trying to anger anyone with this, but when you starting picking up
good stuff from other places, chances are you will pick up their
shortcomings as well.

-- 
Chuck Brewer
Registered Linux User #284015
Get my gpg public key at pgp.mit.edu!! Encrypted e-mail preferred.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[donnie berkholz]

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On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 00:13, C. Brewer wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 20:07:36 -0500
> Rather than make Gentoo more like Debian-like (ick!), wouldn't it be simpler
> to set the ebuild for clisp to /usr/bin/editor and have src_unpack do a
> ln -s $EDITOR /usr/bin/editor, which would give a specific editor while
> leaving the $EDITOR variable alone? 

What if I happen to emerge emacs because I want to learn how to use it,
but would prefer that my default editor remain nano? Things like that
shouldn't change just because I emerged emacs.

Besides, I see it as quite Gentoo-like, given our history of *-config
utilities (java-config, gcc-config). It might make sense to have an
optional front end to all of them, so one just needs to remember
sys-config, and from there select various options (java, gcc, editor,
etc.).

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[C. Brewer]

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On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 03:54:00 -0400
donnie berkholz <spyderous@gentoo.org> wrote:

> What if I happen to emerge emacs because I want to learn how to use it,
> but would prefer that my default editor remain nano? Things like that
> shouldn't change just because I emerged emacs.
> 
> Besides, I see it as quite Gentoo-like, given our history of *-config
> utilities (java-config, gcc-config). It might make sense to have an
> optional front end to all of them, so one just needs to remember
> sys-config, and from there select various options (java, gcc, editor,
> etc.).

Since the individual editors don't set the $EDITOR value, you could emerge
emacs, vi, vim, elvis, pico, etc.,and as long as EDITOR in /etc/rc.conf
still points to /bin/nano, it wouldn't matter. In fact, I'm sure someone
could whip up something that even checked the value in rc.conf and adjusted
the link accordingly. I'm not against an optional front end, or an optional
/etc/alternatives, with the key being optional. Currently when I feel like
dealing with that, I roll my chair over 3 feet to the Debian box. i realize
that it might help alot of people and have no wish to hinder such a effort,
as long as the tools are provided, not forced:)

-- 
Chuck Brewer
Registered Linux User #284015
Get my gpg public key at pgp.mit.edu!! Encrypted e-mail preferred.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] gentoo text editors

[Matthew Kennedy]

"C. Brewer" <cbrewer@stealthaccess.net> writes:

> Rather than make Gentoo more like Debian-like (ick!), wouldn't it be simpler
> to set the ebuild for clisp to /usr/bin/editor and have src_unpack do a
> ln -s $EDITOR /usr/bin/editor, which would give a specific editor while

I dunno... doesn't seem like an elegant solution to me.

> I'm not trying to anger anyone with this, but when you starting picking up
> good stuff from other places, chances are you will pick up their
> shortcomings as well.

I'm interested in what those short coming might be.  I think I may
find time in the next few days to scope what it might take to port
the alternatives system to Gentoo.

Matt

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