Re: Software/HD ecology (was Re:...Bug in Emacs 21.3.50)

[Anil Trivedi <anil@null.invalid>]

Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com> wrote:

> I fail like I can't have a rational argument because you keep shifting
> the focus from one issue to another. 

But several issues *have* been raised here: (1) Don't waste disk space,
(2) Enable users to safely delete either the functionality or files
they know they don't need, (3) And include a complete uninstall script.

Clutter is less of a problem if a complete uninstall option is there,
but it is a major problem if users have to rely on their own wits to
locate and delete the files.

> >> All under the single `Emacs.app' directory.  Seems clean enough to me.

Stefan, looks like we have both been working all night and need a very,
very strong cup of coffee. :-) Rubbing my eyes, this is what I see on
my system:

   anil% find /usr -name emacs -print
   /usr/bin/emacs
   /usr/info/emacs
   /usr/libexec/emacs
   /usr/local/bin/emacs
   /usr/share/emacs
   /usr/share/info/emacs

I only searched for the *name* emacs, there may or may not be other
emacs-ralated files and directories with different names. I love emacs
but if someone didn't want to keep it, should they just delete /usr?!

> Why does this support for other languages bother you, whereas 
> support for TPU-emulation, RMail, Simula, etc... doesn't?  Do you intend 
> to learn Simula?

When you don't need such things and they are taking more than minimal
disk space, you should be abe to delete them too. 

However, human languages are fundamentally different. There is zero
chance that every major program will include a newsreader or TPU or
Simula. It is a near 100% certainty that every major program will
increasingly come with support for a large number of human languages.
If I accumulate 100 programs and there are 100 supported langaues I
don't understand, that would be 10,000 instances of language support I
don't need and can't use. I don't expect to have that kind of problem
with Gnus, Rmail, or Simula.

Anil Trivedi