From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17092 invoked from network); 4 Oct 1999 23:37:08 -0000 Received: from sunsite.auc.dk (130.225.51.30) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 4 Oct 1999 23:37:08 -0000 Received: (qmail 18367 invoked by alias); 4 Oct 1999 23:37:00 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@sunsite.auc.dk; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes X-Seq: 8131 Received: (qmail 18360 invoked from network); 4 Oct 1999 23:37:00 -0000 Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 00:36:59 +0100 From: Adam Spiers To: zsh workers mailing list Subject: Re: PATCH: prompt fun Message-ID: <19991005003659.B19603@thelonious.new.ox.ac.uk> Reply-To: Adam Spiers Mail-Followup-To: zsh workers mailing list References: <19991004194029.B17010@thelonious.new.ox.ac.uk> <991004231403.ZM3580@candle.brasslantern.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre2i In-Reply-To: <991004231403.ZM3580@candle.brasslantern.com> X-URL: http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/~adam/ X-OS: Linux 2.2.12 i686 Bart Schaefer (schaefer@candle.brasslantern.com) wrote: > On Oct 4, 7:40pm, Adam Spiers wrote: > > Subject: PATCH: prompt fun > > Here's a more light-hearted addition, which I've finally got round to > > turning into a releasable form -- themeable prompts. > > This is cool, but it's the kind of thing that makes me repeat my suggestion > that things like this (and most of the more esoteric bits of the completion > system) should be packaged and supported separately from the shell itself. Yes, I've been thinking about these issues myself, although I always tend to come down on the side in favour of packaging it all together. I really like the idea of one `super-shell' which has all the good stuff bundled with it. Why? Hmm. I suppose because: - separate packages for one shell is quite fiddly and very likely to put people off (I've had enormous problems persuading highly intelligent, open-minded friends that even changing /from/ /tcsh/ is worth the hassle), and so it seems important that the install path is made as smooth as possible. - zsh's main characteristic, for me, is that it's jam-packed with loads of great extra features. I suspect that many people view it in that light, and download it because they want all those extras, rather than because they want a standard UNIX shell with a slightly different flavour. Hence, it seems rather perverse to download and install zsh and then have to download and install other packages before you have all the bonus goodies. [As an aside along the same argument, it seems a shame that most of zsh's bells and whistles aren't enabled by default, but I suppose there are strong backwards compatability arguments for this, and that individual distributions can enable them. We've already seen this happening with the new completion system and Mandrake Linux, in fact.] - Improvements to (say) the new completion system very often go hand-in-hand with improvements/bugfixes to the C source, so splitting up this parallel development would probably cause more a lot more problems than it would solve. - zsh is hardly bloatware, and shows no danger of becoming even remotely close IMO. However, there are obviously cons to the single package argument too, which is probably shown up at its most absurd when k3wl_d0oD ANSI PS1 strings end up inside the main source tree. I'm not sure what the best answer is, but my instincts would say a compromise - include a few nice prompts catering for a wide range of tastes, and then leave the rest to the IRC kiddies (hmm, that's me I guess) to work on. That was the approach I tried to take with this prompt patch. Thoughts?