all messages for Emacs-related lists mirrored at yhetil.org
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>
Cc: arash@gnu.org, mrsebastianurban@gmail.com, 36357@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#36357: Wrong Ghostscript program name on MS Win
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 16:45:35 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <831roffxc0.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87368vevqj.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Tassilo Horn on Wed, 22 Apr 2020 11:05:24 +0200)

> From: Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>
> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 11:05:24 +0200
> Cc: Sebastian Urban <mrsebastianurban@gmail.com>, 36357@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Another question: You both used executable-find with exe file extension.
> Was that intended?  I mean, it makes sure we don't falsely set some
> "gs.bat" or "gs.cmd" which might have nothing to do with GhostScript.
> Is that a real danger?  If so, we need the OS distinction again.

It is IME wrong and user-unfriendly to refuse to load foo.bat or
foo.cmd and insist on running foo.exe.  The reason is that having a
batch file that shadows a .exe program is the easiest way of
"customizing" programs, like adding default arguments, setting up a
special PATH value, etc.  I need to do that quite a lot, especially
when working in fascist domains where the admins think they know
better what I need and what I don't.  So I wouldn't like it if Emacs,
of all programs, would disallow me to have a gs64winc.cmd file when
the .exe somehow needs some help to run correctly.

Therefore, my suggestion is to use just "foo" without any extension.
If the user has a foo.bat that is found before foo.exe, it is their
misconfiguration, and they need to fix that locally.  However, more
often than not, the user _wants_ the batch file to run instead, and we
shouldn't punish users who know what they are doing on behalf of those
who don't.

Just my $0.02, feel free to disregard.

P.S. This is not Windows-specific, IMO: the same is true on Posix
systems where a shell script can "shadow" a program.





  parent reply	other threads:[~2020-04-22 13:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-06-24 16:04 bug#36357: Wrong Ghostscript program name on MS Win Sebastian Urban
2019-07-06  8:13 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-07-06 11:29   ` Tassilo Horn
2019-07-06 11:52     ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-07-06 11:51 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-03-18 17:26   ` Sebastian Urban
2020-03-18 18:25     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-03-18 19:23       ` Sebastian Urban
2020-04-13 19:10         ` Sebastian Urban
2020-04-20 20:57           ` Arash Esbati
2020-04-21 13:16             ` Arash Esbati
2020-04-21 13:19               ` Tassilo Horn
2020-04-21 13:25                 ` Arash Esbati
2020-04-21 17:51                   ` Sebastian Urban
2020-04-21 18:34                     ` Tassilo Horn
2020-04-21 18:48                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-04-21 20:29                     ` Arash Esbati
2020-04-22  9:05                       ` Tassilo Horn
2020-04-22 10:07                         ` Sebastian Urban
2020-04-22 13:00                           ` Tassilo Horn
2020-04-22 13:50                           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-04-22 13:45                         ` Eli Zaretskii [this message]
2020-04-22 14:14                           ` Tassilo Horn
2020-04-22 14:32                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-04-22 17:29                               ` Tassilo Horn

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=831roffxc0.fsf@gnu.org \
    --to=eliz@gnu.org \
    --cc=36357@debbugs.gnu.org \
    --cc=arash@gnu.org \
    --cc=mrsebastianurban@gmail.com \
    --cc=tsdh@gnu.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git

This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.