`remote-shell-program' should be customizable

`remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Dave Love]

Apart from the variable needing to be customizable, I think "ssh" is a
better default these days.  (I wanted to use ssh.)

Also, I guess ange-ftp should use `remote-shell-program' as the value
of `ange-ftp-remote-shell' (or instead of it).

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Richard Stallman]

    Apart from the variable needing to be customizable, I think "ssh" is a
    better default these days.  (I wanted to use ssh.)

It puzzles me that most of the definitions in paths.el are defconst's.
It seems that they should all be defcustom.

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> It puzzles me that most of the definitions in paths.el are defconst's.
> It seems that they should all be defcustom.

Probably.  I think there are several other problems:

* I don't know why paths.el defines file names rather than command
  names;

* I think news-path, news-inews-program and the gnus-... variables
  should be moved to Gnus files;

* Most of this should be done at runtime, not in paths.el, which is
  dumped.  There's no reason that rmail-spool-directory should be the
  same on the target system as the build system, for instance -- it's
  rather random on systems I'm familiar with.

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Richard Stallman]

    * Most of this should be done at runtime, not in paths.el, which is
      dumped.  There's no reason that rmail-spool-directory should be the
      same on the target system as the build system, for instance -- it's
      rather random on systems I'm familiar with.

That sounds like a good improvement, if it is done right,
so that any settings made by the user are not overriddem once
relevant packages are read.

Want to send patches?  However, this may as well wait till after the
current release.

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     * Most of this should be done at runtime, not in paths.el, which is
>       dumped.  There's no reason that rmail-spool-directory should be the
>       same on the target system as the build system, for instance -- it's
>       rather random on systems I'm familiar with.
>
> That sounds like a good improvement, if it is done right,
> so that any settings made by the user are not overriddem once
> relevant packages are read.

I'm not sure what you mean.  There would just be a defvar or defcustom
in the relevant file, with something similar to what's in paths.el as
default.

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Richard Stallman]

    >     * Most of this should be done at runtime, not in paths.el, which is
    >       dumped.  There's no reason that rmail-spool-directory should be the
    >       same on the target system as the build system, for instance -- it's
    >       rather random on systems I'm familiar with.
    >
    > That sounds like a good improvement, if it is done right,
    > so that any settings made by the user are not overriddem once
    > relevant packages are read.

    I'm not sure what you mean.  There would just be a defvar or defcustom
    in the relevant file, with something similar to what's in paths.el as
    default.

Ok.  If someone would like to make these changes, it is ok?

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Ok.  If someone would like to make these changes, it is ok?

Certainly by me.  In some cases there may be more than one file the
variable could go in, but maybe only when one choice is an obsolete
file.  I don't remember.

Re: `remote-shell-program' should be customizable

[Richard Stallman]

I wrote:

    > Ok.  If someone would like to make these changes, it is ok?

I meant to write:

    > Ok.  If someone would like to make these changes, it is ok.