Re: "alternatives" versus PATH
Edwin Olson <eolson(a)mit.edu> wrote:
Fedora has shipped "alternatives" for a while now, but I
still don't get it.
Why is "alternatives" better than setting your PATH appropriately? Why
should "alternatives" override your path?
The notion of having an "editor" symlink which points to vim/emacs
seems okay at first, but in practice, who's not going to just type
'emacs'?
Or get terminally confused when <TypeSomeFunkyCommandHere> does something
completely unexpected... this really makes very little sense.
But for selecting the right lpr, or sendmail, or... from a collection of
alternatives that might be installed side by side it does make sense. Sure,
for just one it would be OK to tweak the PATH, but for a half dozen
alternates it gets very messy.
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