Re: etags name collision.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2022 14:47:36 +0200
> From: Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>
> 
> 1) Why do we have etags+ctags executables so far they do more or less
> the same work right?.

Because ctags produces tags table in a format understood by more
applications than just Emacs.

> 2) Why do we create an executable with a name that is used by another
> very wheel known program.

It's the other way around: ctags was a very old Unix program, and
Emacs developed a GNU version of that program.  Universal ctags came
much later.  So you should ask them why did they decide to use a name
that was already taken.

> 3) Could we consider to keep only etags and remove the ctags file in
> order to let the users to access.

I don't see why we should remove a program just because someone who
uses an incompatible program by the same name should manage his/her
installations.  A simple solution is for that user to not install the
Emacs version of ctags.

> In general when the users want to use ctags I am pretty sure they refer
> to universal or exuberant ctags today... But also such executable create
> inconsistencies when using TRAMP and the support for languages like Rust
> or modern C++ is not good; so maybe an even more radical approach may be
> considered. Some distros like Arch Linux explicitly rename it to solve
> the conflict, but if we have etags already, do we really need the other
> executable?

Emacs doesn't need ctags, but users might need it for working with
other development tools.