'open' instead of 'xdg-open' for usability?

[Diggory Hardy]

Replying because this is a good question and not fully answered...

The problem is not standards but compatibility, as stated.

What was not mentioned is that Debian switched the default /bin/sh 
implementation from bash to a simpler POSIX shell (I think dash) not so long 
ago. Naturally, they had similiar compatibility issues — but were able to fix 
the scripts which actually broke.

I don't think any of the systems I have installed recently had an 'open' 
command installed by default (I always alias this to xdg-open on my systems). 
If the 'open' alias is removed, a few scripts may break here and there, and 
people will fix them (to use less generic names like 'openvt' or whatever).

Usage of generic/short names in scripts is inappropriate anyway, IMO. For 
example, typing 'tar xaf xyz.tar.xz' on an interactive command line is fine, 
but in a script long options (--extract, etc) should be used. In fact, if 
there was a way to enforce this type of thing in scripts then it ought to be 
used — along these lines I always head scripts #!/bin/sh not #!/bin/bash.

TLDR: this can be changed and should be, IMO.

On Monday 16 December 2013 04:03:57 Robert Qualls wrote:
> ...
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