[xubuntu-users] shell tools

[pereira]

Ulli,
Another post mentioned that your way of doing it is not necessarily
>> the canonical (that is, preferred; not the Ubuntu people) .
> I do not write programs just for Ubuntu. Seldomly I wrote Linux-only code.
> Normally my programs are generic for all UNIX systems, even MacOS.
>
> Therefore I do not support any "Ubuntu preferred" installation.
> Anyone who thinks it is necessary is invited to add a specific installer.
Sorry, here I use the two of the three (at least) meanings of 'canonical';
What I intended was to say 'proper', according to standard unix or linux.
Then, I remembered that 'Canonical' is also the name of the company that
keeps Ubuntu going. And, of course, 'canonical' originally meant 'according
to the Canon of the Catholic Church', which is where the first meaning comes
from.

I agree with you on writing things in English. My first language is Dutch,
but even when I wrote a tiny little bit of computer code there (in 
algol, of all
languages, in the late 1960s) any comments were already in English. And when
I write a little code (in fortran) here in the US it's also commented in 
English.
Still, comments in German, French or on occasion Spanish are better than no
comments.
> Though I am German, I have NEVER written German programs. All my
> programs are in English, because this is the world languange.
> See http://fex.rus.uni-stuttgart.de:8080/
> All other languages, even German, are contributions from others.
> This is the way how open source works: someone creates an interesting
> program and others contribute to it.

> I have added then http://fex.belwue.de/swinstall for "foreigners"
> especially to have a generic update machanism for my fstools.
>
Thank you; I might look at this when I have some time.

>> I saw it uses /etc/os-release, which is so well-named that there is no
>> doubt about what it's good for but I did not know existed. It's good to
>> know though
> Not every UNIX has this file, not even every Linux!
> It is just common for some distributions.
>
That's the kind of thing that drives me up the wall. There should be 
standards
for these things, just as there is a standard that tells you to 
increment 'path' in
.profile rather than in .bashrc (which is where I used to put things 
before .bashrc
pulled them in from other files). Same with where you put programs that 
you get
elsewhere. You mention putting them in /opt: the problem is then that they
disappear  when you install a new version from scratch, so  now I put 
them under
/home (and, I'm the only  user on my system).

Despite comments like this, I do appreciate you and other's enlightening 
posts to the list.

Thank you

Nino