Re: PATCH: Re: adding a toplevel zsh.spec.in file

[Zefram <zefram@fysh.org>]

Trond Eivind=?iso-8859-1?q?_Glomsr=F8d?= wrote:
>The default value sucks (IMHO) - the alternative is patching the
>source, which would be much more confusing. The solution for zsh is
>simple - just set something in your .zshrc.
> 
>HISTSIZE isn't too bad (you can override it) and /etc/inputrc is
>necesarry to make bash 1.4x work with non-ASCII characters.

Setting the prompt, INPUTRC and so on by default without stepping
on users' toes is easy -- just set them in /etc/skel/.{ba,z}shrc.
There's no tradeoff required between default functionality and keeping
out of the way, there's no fine line to walk, /etc/skel lets you provide
arbitrarily clever functionality to users that don't attempt to configure
their shells at all while simultaneously leaving the shells' own standard
default settings completely unaffected and available to anyone that
wants to write their own dotfiles.

Given the availability of such a mechanism, any /etc/profile that fiddles
with the configuration of an interactive shell can only be regarded as
broken.  The argument about providing new functionality to users with
old dotfiles just doesn't hold water, especially when one is creating
a package to be used when setting up a new system, where there are no
existing users to be concerned about.

-zefram