"alternatives" versus PATH

[Horst H. von Brand]

Edwin Olson <eolson at mit.edu> wrote:
> Fedora has shipped "alternatives" for a while now, but I still don't get it.
> 
> Why is "alternatives" better than setting your PATH appropriately? Why
> should "alternatives" override your path?
> 
> The notion of having an "editor" symlink which points to vim/emacs
> seems okay at first, but in practice, who's not going to just type
> 'emacs'?

Or get terminally confused when <TypeSomeFunkyCommandHere> does something
completely unexpected... this really makes very little sense.

But for selecting the right lpr, or sendmail, or... from a collection of
alternatives that might be installed side by side it does make sense. Sure,
for just one it would be OK to tweak the PATH, but for a half dozen
alternates it gets very messy.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
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