| Subject: | Namespace clash with par.pl |
Hi,
we have a namespace problem in Debian with 'par.pl'. The Debian policy
states [1] that scripts should be installed on $PATH without a
language-specific extension (.pl in this case). The reasoning is that
the suffix doesn't add any information about the program and the
implementation language might change in the future.
However, there's already /usr/bin/par in Debian, and it's a pretty
widely known paragraph reformatter [2]. Indeed, for many people
(including myself), the first assumption about 'par.pl' is that it's
this reformatter rewritten in Perl.
Therefore, it looks like we have to rename par.pl to something else in
Debian. The candidate name currently is par-archive; some discussion can
be found on the debian-perl mailing list [3].
Do you have any preference for an alternative name? Would you consider
renaming par.pl in the PAR-Packer distribution, given the clash with the
paragraph reformatter?
If you don't and won't (which I find quite a reasonable position, of
course), please consider this just a notification about the renaming in
Debian and feel free to close this bug.
For the record, we're tracking this issue as Debian bug #451600 [4].
Many thanks for your work on the PAR modules,
--
Niko Tyni (Debian Perl Group)
ntyni@iki.fi
[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-scripts
[2] http://www.nicemice.net/par/
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-perl/2007/11/msg00035.html
[4] http://bugs.debian.org/451600