[Pkg-tcltk-devel] Debian Tcl/Tk packages: get rid of alternatives

[tomas at tuxteam.de]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Mon, Jul 01, 2013 at 01:46:34PM +0400, Sergei Golovan wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I'd like to discuss a thought of getting rid of /usr/bin/tclsh and
> /usr/bin/wish alternatives in Debian Tcl/Tk packages. This means that
> symlinks /usr/bin/tclsh and /usr/bin/wish will be in tcl and tk
> packages only, and will point to the default tclsh8.* and wish8.*
> unconditionally. The same approach is currently using in Python
> packaging.
> 
> There's pro and contra in this:

Totally non-authoritative user opinion here: to me it makes sense:
scripts should state dependency on the interpreter/lib version
explicitly anyway (and Tcl has a mechanism for that), user from the
command line will get some sensible default via symlink.

The only downside I see is the access to the "right" man pages:
the alternatives mechanism provides an elegant way to do that
(whenever my default is tcl X.Y I'll "see" tcl X.Y's man pages).

Is there any other way to achieve that? How does Python do that?
(Maybe Python doesn't rely that much on man, its culture being
much less unixy).

Thanks
- -- tomás
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAlHRsvEACgkQBcgs9XrR2kYqpgCeLVKCmXtMIWDh2jc4+HX6eE8S
GEIAniDD8eFC6YcIkKRjqBO0Tj588Zhk
=P59x
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----