Matthew Flatt wrote: > * Some of us have discussed collapsing `setup-plt', `mzc', `planet', > `plt-help' and (in case I've overlooked any) other miscellaneous > programming tools into a single `rico' executable.
I see that as mixing apples and oranges. Then there's a strong risk of it ending up like cvs, where I could never remember which '-something' options I could use or not use in combination with which 'update', 'log', etc. sub-command, and where the same obscure '-something' option had a different meaning depending on which 'update', 'log', etc. sub-command I was in the middle of using (or was it that the same option had a different meaning depending on whether it appeared before the sub-command name or after? I can't remember now, nor do I want to...) Robby Findler wrote: >FWIW, part of this is motivated from the fact that we're coming from a >situation where the dev tools are spread out among a bunch of >executables and you'd never really guess where some of the >functionality is (quick: where is zo-file decompilation?). But it's only going to move the problem by one word to the right by adding the word 'rico' in front (quick: which combination of rico sub-command and option does zo-file decompilation?) I think it would be more useful to keep separate commands and just have them all start with the same prefix to make them easier to find. This is is fact what svn does for all its svnadmin, svnsync, etc., commands. I type 'svn' in my shell followed by two tabs and I get: svn svnlook svn-populate-node-origins-index svnmucc svnadmin svnserve svnauthz-validate svnsync svndumpfilter svnversion Well chosen names with a common prefix go a long way (I wouldn't call some of the svn-related programs listed just above "well named" but you get the idea). Neil Van Dyke wrote: > I think that ".racket-source" would be an annoyingly long filename > extension for many people who would use Racket. I'll second that. Using tab-completion only works if the file already exists. Long extension names are also a pain when listing files in a shell because it reduces the number of columns and makes the listing needlessly long. So, as far as I'm concerned, the shorter the better. And while we're at it, I'd vote for a short extension name that's also easy to type on a keyboard (because something like 'scrbl' isn't exactly easy on the fingers...) :-) Philippe _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-dev
