[plt-scheme] Unix install

On May  2, mvanier wrote:
> I find this discussion somewhat surprising.  I run PLT scheme on
> Linux, install into /usr/local/plt, and all I have to do is to set a
> few shell variables, specifically PATH, MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH,
> and PLTHOME.

The unix counter argument would be that it is unrealistic to have
*PATH variables that include a huge number of application directories.


> Not exactly a huge burden IMO, especially since now that they're set
> in my shell initialization script, I can install new versions with
> no extra effort.  I've never had any problems with this.  You could
> argue that it's worse if you have to install for a large group of
> users, but not much.  I frankly think the traditional Unix
> installation conventions are a relic that should be overhauled (and
> I'm not some kind of Windows or Mac advocate either; I'm a hard-core
> Linux user).  On my machine, /usr/local/plt has 6832 non-directory
> files in it.  Personally, I like the feeling of knowing that I can
> find everything PLT-related under one directory.

I'm in this camp too.  A better solution (IMO) would be a single
APPPATH that specifies a directory of applications, where each one has
subdirectories for man/lib/include etc.  But that's unrealistic.
[When I searched for ways to get to the current executable filename on
Unix (no portable way to do that), I consistently got to pages where
"Unix Gurus" will go on lengthy discussions explaining that it's
usually due to people who want to keep extra files in the same
directory (for single-directory distributions), why you should conform
to the standard way instead, and why you're an idiot for trying to
fight it (that last argument often degrades to "decades of unix can't
be wrong").]

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
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