[plt-dev] renaming programs in the distribution

From: Matthew Flatt (mflatt at cs.utah.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 21 08:43:58 EDT 2010

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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