I think that all of this silliness could be avoided, while perfectly reproducing current behavior, if jstar, joe, etc were wrappers, not symlinks:
#!/bin/bash if [ "x$(basename -- $0)" = xeditor ]; then progname=jstar else progname="$0" fi exec -a "$progname" /usr/lib/joe/joe.real -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org