From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 12935 invoked from network); 18 Jul 2000 20:37:55 -0000 Received: from sunsite.auc.dk (130.225.51.30) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 18 Jul 2000 20:37:55 -0000 Received: (qmail 28004 invoked by alias); 18 Jul 2000 20:37:48 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@sunsite.auc.dk; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes X-Seq: 12306 Received: (qmail 27997 invoked from network); 18 Jul 2000 20:37:47 -0000 Subject: Re: PATCH: Re: adding a toplevel zsh.spec.in file In-Reply-To: from =?us-ascii?Q?Trond_Eivind=3D=3Fiso=2D8859=2D1=3Fq=3F=5FGlomsr?= =?us-ascii?Q?=3DF8d=3F=3D?= at "Jul 18, 2000 04:07:52 pm" To: =?us-ascii?Q?Trond_Eivind=3D=3Fiso=2D8859=2D1=3Fq=3F=5FGlomsr?= =?us-ascii?Q?=3DF8d=3F=3D?= Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 21:37:59 +0100 (BST) CC: Zefram , zsh workers mailing list X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: From: Zefram 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