From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 18243 invoked from network); 13 Jul 2005 08:01:50 -0000 Received: from news.dotsrc.org (HELO a.mx.sunsite.dk) (130.225.247.88) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 13 Jul 2005 08:01:50 -0000 Received: (qmail 4969 invoked from network); 13 Jul 2005 08:01:44 -0000 Received: from sunsite.dk (130.225.247.90) by a.mx.sunsite.dk with SMTP; 13 Jul 2005 08:01:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 11463 invoked by alias); 13 Jul 2005 08:01:40 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@sunsite.dk; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes X-Seq: 21455 Received: (qmail 11454 invoked from network); 13 Jul 2005 08:01:39 -0000 Received: from news.dotsrc.org (HELO a.mx.sunsite.dk) (130.225.247.88) by sunsite.dk with SMTP; 13 Jul 2005 08:01:39 -0000 Received: (qmail 4655 invoked from network); 13 Jul 2005 08:01:39 -0000 Received: from vms040pub.verizon.net (206.46.252.40) by a.mx.sunsite.dk with SMTP; 13 Jul 2005 08:01:35 -0000 Received: from candle.brasslantern.com ([71.116.88.149]) by vms040.mailsrvcs.net (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2 HotFix 0.04 (built Dec 24 2004)) with ESMTPA id <0IJK00M3U3MLLMI1@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> for zsh-workers@sunsite.dk; Wed, 13 Jul 2005 03:01:34 -0500 (CDT) Received: from candle.brasslantern.com (IDENT:schaefer@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by candle.brasslantern.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j6D81W8u027124 for ; Wed, 13 Jul 2005 01:01:32 -0700 Received: (from schaefer@localhost) by candle.brasslantern.com (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id j6D81WTD027123 for zsh-workers@sunsite.dk; Wed, 13 Jul 2005 01:01:32 -0700 Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 08:01:31 +0000 From: Bart Schaefer Subject: Re: Default usability wiki page set up In-reply-to: To: zsh-workers@sunsite.dk Message-id: <1050713080132.ZM27122@candle.brasslantern.com> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Z-Mail (5.0.0 30July97) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii References: Comments: In reply to Keir Mierle "Default usability wiki page set up" (Jul 13, 1:46am) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 on a.mx.sunsite.dk X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=6.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Hits: -2.6 On Jul 13, 1:46am, Keir Mierle wrote: } } Perhaps we could get a better conses on things before I start } implementing code that won't be accepted? I've been waiting to see where this discussion would go, but so far it seems rather one-sided, so ... The first thing you have to explain is exactly where you think we should put these defaults. You keep using the phrase "out of the box" without seeming to notice that there is no box -- and I don't mean in the obvious sense that zsh is distributed electronically. We don't control what gets installed in the /etc/z* files; it would instantly alienate the very sysadmins who have to make zsh available to their users if "make install" stomped on whatever they may already have in those files; and back when we included samples in the source distribution, the results were messy to the point of near-disaster because of inattention on the part of (for example) the people at RedHat who created the zsh RPM. (Those sorts of packagings are the closest zsh comes to a "box", but -- except for, say, Clint, who actively contributes to this list as the Debian packager -- the zsh maintainers are not the people who pack those boxes.) We're even farther from being able to control the default "skeleton" that sets up individual users' home directories. Before any other discussion is useful, the bootstrap problem has to be solved. As for "Make completions Just Work(TM)" I'm not sure how much closer you want us to get. There are 460 completion functions now included in the distribution, plus "compinstall" to interactively set up your init files to use them; and commands like xpdf and acroread *do* have completions that are limited to files they're likely to understand, once the completion system has been enabled. It's also worth noting that a significant source of complaints when lots of nifty defaults are provided is that the shell (or any other program) begins to take much longer to start up. I can't tell you how annoyed I am when I find that a sysadmin has preset the LESSOPEN environment for me to the horrible lesspipe.sh, and I end up waiting several seconds every time I want to look at a text file while this stupid script analyzes it seven ways from Tuesday to decide if it should uncompress it or unzip it or some other thing that only needs to happen in a tiny fraction of the actual cases where I use less. This is an example of killing usability in the name of ease of use, and it's where every discussion of "better program defaults" that I have ever seen (and I don't mean just for zsh) always ends up going.