Re: [O] We're doing it wrong. [WAS]: Zip utility on Windows for ODT exporter

[Achim Gratz]

Loyall, David writes:
> And that's why civilized programs don't depend on external executables
> from $PATH.

Then practically all programs are uncivilized, especially when
considering that dynamic libraries are just another form of external
executables.

> Now, I'd imagine that some people have argued in the past that org
> shouldn't depend on external executables.  Clearly those arguments
> have failed.

I'm sure that if you could point to an Emacs package that allows to work
with archives without depending on external executables it would be used
instead, but I'm not aware of any such package: ox-odt uses arc-mode for
unzipping (which in turn uses call-proc for actually doing it) and then
call-proc itself to do the zipping.

> But, let's take a fresh look.  How about this rule of thumb: don't
> depend on external executables **from $PATH**.
>
> Can we agree on that?

No, because I can't really see the point, especially since Emacs doesn't
use just $PATH for call-proc, but a user option exec-path (whose default
value is a copy of $PATH, but even a cursory look on $PATH on a Windows
system should convince you that you really should change this).

> How about: don't depend on external executables from $PATH, but allow
> the user to override via config.

How about: if you want that level of control, customize exec-path (and
perhaps exec-suffixes)?

> This is important on the 'reproducible research' front.

Are we still talking about Windows?  You'd need an audited system if you
want to take it that far, I'm not sure anybody has tried to do this on
Windows and is still outside the asylum.  The only practical way seems
to deliver the reproducible research as a VM (yes, that has other
problems).


Regards,
Achim.
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