[Pkg-javascript-devel] Bug#650343: nodejs: please provide "nodejs" command as a synonym for node

[Jonathan Nieder]

tags 650343 + patch
quit

Hi Jérémy et al,

Jonathan Nieder wrote:

> On some machines /usr/sbin/node refers to some program that is not the
> node.js interpreter.  Therefore it would be helpful to have a "nodejs"
> command that does exactly the same thing as /usr/bin/node, for people
> to put into their scripts to reliably refer to the node.js interpreter.

The message [1] reminded me that this still wasn't finished.  Oops.
Sorry to be so slow.

After rereading [2], I am a little afraid of bringing this up upstream
without a patch.  Unfortunately the build system scares me, too, so
for now all I can offer is a patch against the Debian packaging.

(Disclaimer: the following has nothing to do with Debian policy.) I
genuinely think the best thing Debian could do in wheezy is:

 - provide Node.js as /usr/bin/node

 - provide LinuxNode as /usr/sbin/node

 - also provide unambiguous names (e.g., nodejs, ax25-node) for these
   commands, and use the unambiguous names in configuration and in
   other packages

I also hope that upstream can understand that we are not trying to
deny reality or to work against them but that it would be nice for
googlability among other reasons to move to less generic names for
these commands and avoid generic command names in the future.

The name /usr/bin/nodejs seems to have some cross-distro support.[3]

Thoughts?  Improvements?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/04/msg00693.html
[2] http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/12a673a14838aa9a/
[3] <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=815018>:

"* There is a file conflict with the /usr/bin/node shipped by the "node" package
 in Fedora.  I rename everything to "nodejs" to avoid this, and there are
 several patches in my SRPM [3] that make Node happy with this."