Hello Eric,
I dug around for why I filed for the change in behavior.
Here is the bug report that prompted it:
https://coq.inria.fr/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=2726
ctags -e is not a perfect replacement for etags; in this
example, 'make tags' calls out to etags and expects the Emacs
version.
etags = emacs tags. It seems only natural for it to have priority,
and tools which refer to it are likely to assume emacs tags. If
I am an emacs user, and I install 'ctags', I don't expect my 'etags'
executable to suddenly change; I should ask for it specifically.
Though, yes, I agree the behavior change is unexpected and confusing,
if you had been using ctags and then installed emacs.
Cheers,
Edward
Excerpts from Colin Watson's message of 2015-04-07 17:59:53 -0700:
> On Tue, Apr 07, 2015 at 06:58:23PM -0400, Eric Cooper wrote:
> > After installing exuberant-ctags:
> >
> > $ sudo update-alternatives --config ctags
> > There are 2 choices for the alternative ctags (providing /usr/bin/ctags).
> >
> > Selection Path Priority Status
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > * 0 /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant 30 auto mode
> > 1 /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant 30 manual mode
> > 2 /usr/bin/ctags.emacs24 27 manual mode
> >
> >
> > $ sudo update-alternatives --config etags
> > There are 2 choices for the alternative etags (providing /usr/bin/etags).
> >
> > Selection Path Priority Status
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > * 0 /usr/bin/etags.emacs24 27 auto mode
> > 1 /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant 10 manual mode
> > 2 /usr/bin/etags.emacs24 27 manual mode
> >
> > This was unexpected and confusing.
>
> This was explicitly requested in https://bugs.debian.org/668560. I
> don't use Emacs and have no intuition for what its users might want, so
> I've CCed the reporter of that bug and perhaps the two of you can argue
> it out and arrive at a consensus? It doesn't seem like a good idea for
> me to flip-flop on this.
>
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