Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> There is no reason ever to uncompress a file (lesspipe and
> lessopen make it unnecessary).
Good thing if lesspipe is now correctly setup (Wasn't in bo, and I'm not
sure I don't have a older hacked version of /etc/csh.login on my system).
You still get garbage if you use more.
Perhaps Emacs could use some good defaults too?
> The base system has gunzip et al.
less too? (It's standard, but not required)
> Peter> I'm not arguing that dpkg should handle .aux files files
> Peter> behind after someone has latex'ed docs. I'm arguing that the
> Peter> `intent' of packaging a compressed file is to have the
> Peter> uncompressed original available on the system. Debian
> Peter> upgrades should therefore acknowledge the possibility that
> Peter> files have been decompressed.
>
> I disagree quite strongly. If the intent was to have
> uncompressed originals on the system we would have shipped them as
> such.
Man... Change the sentence to:
I'm arguing that the `intent' of packaging a compressed file is to have
the uncompressed original INFORMATION available on the system (WHETHER YOU
LET LESS TO DO THAT FOR YOU, OR USE GZIP ON THE FILE ITSELF).
A uncompressed file is more useful than a compressed one, except that it
uses up more space. If dpkg were to upgrade a file that you had
uncompressed:
- It would not be reading your mind. That's ridiculous.
- It would be doing you a favour.
- It would be doing the right thing. Why would you possibly _not_ want to
upgrade it?
I hope I have convinced a few people. I am sure I'm never going to
convince Manoj, and I'd rather not argue this forever.
--
Peter Galbraith, research scientist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 1000, Mont-Joli Qc, G5H 3Z4 Canada. 418-775-0852 FAX: 775-0546
6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/
