svn commit: r337826 - stable/11/bin/ls

[Ian Lepore]

On Wed, 2018-08-15 at 10:36 -0700, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 11:07 AM, Rodney W. Grimes
> > <freebsd at pdx.rh.cn85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > [ Charset UTF-8 unsupported, converting... ]
> > > > 
> > > > On 14 August 2018 at 21:41, Rodney W. Grimes
> > > > <freebsd at pdx.rh.cn85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Author: kevans
> > > > > > Date: Wed Aug 15 01:29:02 2018
> > > > > > New Revision: 337826
> > > > > > URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/337826
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Log:
> > > > > >   MFC r337506: ls(1): Enable colors with COLORTERM is set
> > > > > > in the environment
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >   COLORTERM is the de facto standard, while CLICOLOR is
> > > > > > generally specific to
> > > > > >   FreeBSD and ls(1).
> > > > > I have already seen one "Who enabled %&*@(#$@) colored ls
> > > > > output in 12?"
> > > > > Seems that the defaults for xfce terminal is to have
> > > > > COLORTERM.
> > > > If xfce's default is to request colour via the de-facto
> > > > environment
> > > > variable then we should generally honour it -- the answer to
> > > > the
> > > > %&*@(#$@) question is "you did, via your terminal's default."
> > > And I pointed that out to them, but it is kinda a POLA, people
> > > have
> > > had to take explicit action to get colorls, that is no longer
> > > true
> > > and that suprises them when they see it.
> > > 
> > I find the POLA angle kind-of hard to buy, though. Nothing in the
> > base
> > system offers a way for the default behavior of ls(1) to be
> > altered,
> > and this whole change is only honoring a de-facto standard for
> > indicating that a colored terminal is supported and desired.
> > 
> > IMO, one should be aware of how the software they use is affecting
> > their environment and the kinds of repercussions these changes may
> > have. This is hardly the first bit of software that respects
> > COLORTERM, and it surely won't be the last (in general... no
> > specific
> > plans here). =(
> You can say it isnt a POLA, but the user was asstonished when it
> happened and made the comment, hence forth, it is POLA.
> 
> Personally, I dont care, I do not use xfce's default terminal,
> I specificially invoke xterm.
> 

I would expect the thing that would lead to the most astonishment by
most users would be "Even though I (or my shell) set COLORTERM, nothing
in freebsd respects that and I still have to turn 18 other knobs to get
color support from standard utilities."

There's not much I hate more than colored output in my preferred black-
on-white terminal windows, but having to enable or disable that support
in multiple places is the kind of thing that would rank right up there.

-- Ian