[plt-dev] Re: renaming programs in the distribution

Does this also imply that you advocate "racket-tool scribble" over
just "scribble" (and similarly for slideshow? Drracket?)

Robby

On Wednesday, April 21, 2010, Matthew Flatt <mflatt at cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> Since the vote is split evenly between 1A and 3, I think that 1B is the
> right compromise:
>
>  * It keeps `racket' as a REPL plus program launcher.
>
>  * It puts "racket" into the command program's name.
>
>  * It avoids fragile heuristics on filenames versus commands.
>
> The name `racket-tool' is too long for me, but after aliasing `rt' to
> `racket-tool' (and `r' to `racket') in my shell, I expect to be
> completely happy with 1B.
>
> At Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:38:49 -0600, Matthew Flatt wrote:
>> Here are the plausible options we came up with on the IRC channel:
>>
>>  1: Keep `racket' plus a separate command tool
>>   1A: Keep `rico' as the command tool (i.e., status quo)
>>   1B: Rename `rico' to `racket-tool'
>>
>>  2: Rename `racket' to `racket-run', rename `rico' to `racket', add a
>>     `racket run' command, and let `racket' (no command) still provide a
>>     REPL
>>
>>  3: Like 2, but let `racket' guess whether its first argument is a
>>     command or a file name so that `racket <file>' often works (i.e.,
>>     the most recent proposal, but amended with `racket-run' for
>>     scripts)
>>
>> 1A is obviously best, because it fits existing conventions.
>> 1A is obviously worst, because `rico' doesn't contain "Racket".
>>
>> 1B acceptably fixes the problem with `rico' by adding "racket".
>> 1B leaves us with an unacceptably long and ugly tool name, as will
>>    anything that starts "racket".
>>
>> 2 works well, since it makes `racket' the one executable for
>>   everything.
>> 2 doesn't work, because users expect `racket <file>' to to run the
>>   file.
>>
>> 3 looks like the best combination; it almost always does what you'd
>>   expect, and the only real trouble shows up with people who put "." in
>>   their PATH, which is a typical newbie mistake that we shouldn't try
>>   to accommodate. [But I have "." in my PATH.]
>> 3 looks suspiciously like an attempt to innovate; it's unusual, it has
>>   surprising corner cases, and it interacts awkwardly with tab
>>   completion.
>>
>>
>> I can live with any of the options.
>>
>> My vote, most preferred to least:
>> '(3 1B 1A 2)
>>
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