Re: Respect MACHINE.

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hi Kristaps,

Kristaps Dzonsons wrote on Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:44:31AM +0100:

> The enclosed small patch respects the MACHINE variable

I hate environment variables in general (as opposed to variables
used inside programs, like those in daily(8) and security(8)).
I think looking at them is a bad idea in most cases.
They change behaviour of programs, and as a user,
it is very easy to forget about variables one has set,
and it may even happen that the administrator changes
variables behind one's back (in /etc/profile).

Whenever a program looks at a variable, it should be checked
whether looking at the variable can be removed, and i'm OK with
keeping it only when there are very strong reasons to do so.

Adding new variables is almost never OK with me.

Keeping MANPATH is probably OK because it has been around so
long and many people are probably used to it; removing it would
be likely to cause more confusion than continuing to support it.
But adding to that - no, i hate the idea.

Regarding MACHINE, i believe that variable should not be used at
all except for technical purposes, like in build systems.
It should not affect which documentation i can find!
If i had a VAX, i would certainly often use apropos(1) on i386
or amd64 to search for VAX documentation, just because it's
faster, and i would not want to fiddle with the environment.

> as stipulated in man(1).

I fear in man(1), that may have to be kept, for historical reason,
though i do think it's a bug that man -aw does not ignore MACHINE.
Then again, unless it's stipulated by POSIX, maybe it should be
removed completely.  Why would anybody tweak the shell to display
manuals for the wrong architecture by *default*?  If i want to see
one specific manual for a different architecture, i will use -S.

> This isn't mentioned in apropos(1) or whatis(1),

No, because such bloat is absent there, as it should.

> but it makes sense to be consistent with man(1)'s environment
> (MANPATH, etc.).  Thoughts?

Please drop that patch, without replacement.

Thanks,
  Ingo
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