On Wed, 2003-06-18 at 10:11, Sebastian Rittau wrote: > Normally they don't have a good reason,
I outlined a ton of good reasons earlier. See: http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2003/debian-policy-200306/msg00115.html > except that they can rely on the > existance of that editor. *If* I set my $EDITOR variable, I prefer this > editor to be used, no matter whether I'm using a console program, mutt, > or Evolution. If I wanted to use a different editor, I would set my > EDITOR variable differently. I always have EDITOR set, but that doesn't mean I want to use that editor inside GNOME. I mostly have it set for all those terminal apps. > Please keep in mind that it is important that the user should be in control > of his or her environment. When I set the EDITOR variable, but this is > not honored, I don't feel like I'm in control. I'm not advocating taking away any control. > Please keep also in mind > that there is a reason people set the EDITOR variable: they have an > editor, which they are used to, which they can handle, which they have > configured to their needs, and therefore want to use. It is a bad idea to > force users to learn a different editor for different tasks. Some people also set it just to cover all the old, unintegrated applications they may occasionally use. > Of course it might be a good idea to enhance sensible-editor and co to > use a different editor in different environment by default (i.e. if the > $EDITOR and $VISUAL variables are not set). The autodetection idea just won't work. I outlined some reasons in an earlier thread. > Alternatively desktops could > check if EDITOR and VISUAL are set and if not set them to their > preferred editor. But this still implies EDITOR and PAGER should trump the environment's preferences, and I don't think they should.
