Re: Hallelujah! Hspell 1.0 is released.

Nadav Har'El wrote:

>From your description, it appears that this "alternatives" mechanism (which
>like Dan, I wasn't even aware of),
>
Maybe because it is, originally, a Debian system. I'm not sure which RPM
based distro uses it now.

> is perhaps well-suited for system software
>(e.g., choosing between Sendmail and Postfix, or between MySQL and Postgresql)
>but I don't see how it is relevant for user-level software, like which
>spell-checker to use. If changing the spell-checker to use requires modifying
>links, how can multiple users use this system concurrently?
>  
>
Because it does not select the spell checker, only the *default* spell
checker. That is, at least, the original Debian intention for the
system. I'm not sure what has happened to it since.

>The "alternatives" system you mention could become useful (in my opinion) if
>instead of linking to one of the alternatives, the program could link to a
>script which chooses one of the alternatives based on run-time criteria,
>such as an environment variable. If "alternatives" don't provide that feature,
>it's not too hard to write a script that does provide it (multispell itself
>comes close).
>  
>
The basic idea is that the application (be it emacs, kmail or whatever)
should allow the user to set their own preferences, but should also
allow the system administrator to set a system-wide default.


In any case, this is exactly a case where the selections you make when
packaging (for example - what priority to give hspell) depend not only
on the technology, but also on the selections other packages made.
Still, unified packaging was such a great idea.....

          Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html

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