Re: extension_control_path

On Feb 6, 2014, at 9:14 AM, Greg Stark <stark@mit.edu> wrote:

> Installing into /usr/local is a global system change. Only root should
> be able to do that and any user that can do that can easily acquire
> root privileges.

I agree with you, but I don’t think the Homebrew folks do. Or at least their current implementation doesn’t. OT though.

> Well, users can do whatever they want at run-time but there are
> blessed paths that are the correct place to install things that these
> systems are configured to search automatically. My point was just that
> there are generally two such blessed paths, one for the distribution
> and one for the local sysadmin.

Yeah, two blessed would be very useful, but I think the ability to add any number of paths would be even better.

> What you do not want is to have a different path for each piece of
> software. That way lies the
> /usr/local/kde/bin:/usr/local/gnome/bin:/usr/local/myfavouritehack/bin:...
> madness. You can do this with Python or Perl but they won't do it
> automatically and everyone who does this with environment variables or
> command line flags eventually realizes what a mess it is. (Except Java
> programmers)

Agreed.

Best,

David