X-Authentication-Warning: acp3bf.physik.rwth-aachen.de: broeker owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 13:29:41 +0200 (MET DST) From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker X-Sender: broeker AT acp3bf To: Eli Zaretskii cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: initialization file for gnuplot 3.7 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote: > The important aspect here is documentation. You message seemed to > imply that these file-name changes aren't documented in the official > docs of the GNU packages. I know only one case where it isn't > documented, and that's GDB. Others have the special DOS init file > name documented in the manual. Ooops, seems I didn't recognize that. I thought these changes only ever were documented in the README.djg or README.dos files that came with the DJGPP ports. > > This change from '.program' to '_program' is only necessary because the > > program itself didn't pay attention to MS-DOS, before the DJGPP port was > > made. > > I fail to see the fine difference. Why does it matter whether a > problem was fixed as part of the DJGPP porting or by generations > before that? By and large, DJGPP is the only DOS configuration that > is supported by GNU packages nowadays, anyway; all the other DOS > configurations are usually long broken due to lack of support. [FYI: gnuplot is not a GNU package. The name's a coincidence] gnuplot is vastly different, in this aspect. It contains pre-made makefiles to compile it with lots of DOS and Windows compilers, ranging from Borland C++ 3.1 for 16bit compilation all the way to DJGPP and M$ VC. All this has been the case since at least gnuplot-3.5, released back in 1993. The initialization file for all these long-existing DOS versions has always been called 'gnuplot.ini', and this behaviour has been clearly documented, as well. Changing it now, for no apparent reason than personal taste, would be totally unreasonable, IMHO. [...] > I usually prefer that a program looks for the original Unix name, and > if not found, falls back to the DOS surrogate (yes, I know Emacs > doesn't follow that). How is that surrogate called is less important, > but my HO is that _gnuplot is better than gnuplot.ini, unless > gnuplot.ini was used for a long time (breaking back-compatibility with > no good reason is never a good idea). That last one is exactly the reason I'm opposing against this particular change. 'gnuplot.ini' is existing practice for well over 5 years, in all DOS versions of gnuplot. Changing only the DJGPP version would break users' expectations without any good reason. Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.