Re: GH:zsh-users/zsh-completions.

[Peter Stephenson <p.stephenson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:29:52 +0200
Oliver Kiddle <okiddle@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Does anyone else have views on allowing a github model for completion
> functions? Most of my arguments against github usage don't really apply
> if we're only talking about completions for commands.

It's already allowed --- anyone can set this up, and they already have.
Anyone can use any set of shell functions they like.

The next question is more about how it interacts with the source
distribution.  If it overrides it --- which is easy to set up, too ---
there's no actual clash.  The question then becomes more one of bundling
and installation.

If it completely replaces it, that's probably not a problem since
developers can easily get the completions from elsewhere, and again it
becomes a bundling problem for distribution.  It's not clear to me how
helpful that is in practice.  If you have a stable branch in the original
repository, it's going to have to be maintained as an update from the
development branch for each completion separately --- which isn't much
different from just copying it over to the source distribution, where
the update also gets a bit more visibility from people not necessarily
interested in a rapidly changing completion repository.

> And is there a simple way to provide this without separating the repository?

That seems to me the wrong way to go.  There's no absolute need for
completions to be in the same place as the source.  Either keep them
separate and updated and installed separately (but potentially bundled
with a source release for convenience) or keep them (or an stabilised
version, as above) with the source, with the restrictions that implies.

pws