emacs and /etc/alternatives

[Andrew Haley]

Jesse Keating writes:
 > On Friday 09 March 2007 12:56:01 Chip Coldwell wrote:
 > > I really don't understand the reaction alternatives is getting.  Is it
 > > really preferable to have every package create its own script, using its
 > > own environment variables and its own priorities, than to use a common
 > > infracstructure like alternatives?  At least once the SA has learned
 > > alternatives, he knows what to expect from the different packages that use
 > > it.
 > 
 > Forgive my ignorance, but isn't alternatives a sitewide thing, where 
 > preference for emacs vs emacs-nox might be a per user thing?

alternatives just provides a master symlink called "emacs" pointing to
emacs-foo, emacs-bar, and do on.  You can still invoke emacs-foo and
emacs-bar directly.

Andrew.