Subject: Re: bug#18891: Doesn't handle pwd = /C: very well

From: Michael Albinus <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 09:42:33 +0100

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

>> tramp-default-method-alist. I don't see why it is better than the
>> current behaviour.
>
> It's better because out of the box /<host>: won't work any more (so it
> can't collide with a local dir), but if people still like it, they can
> get the old behavior by customizing tramp-default-method-alist.

When you proposed to deprecate the /<host>: syntax I said I'm with you
from the implementation point of view. Now your proposal still includes
this syntax, only discouraging people using it. So the promise of a
simpler implementation is not true anymore.

What's left is that we will annoy people, because tramp-default-method
won't exist anymore. They will learn soon, that (add-to-list
'tramp-default-method-alist '(nil nil "scp") t) will restore the
previous behaviour. We won't gain nothing.

And everything just for the rare-or-even-not-existing case that a user
has a local directory "/C:/" or similar. How often does it happen? I
haven't seen such reports for years (maybe never, but I distrust my
memory). Even this report is not based on an evidence in real life, but
on a 13 years old message about a problem with ange-ftp.

I don't believe this is sufficient for annoying Emacs users.

And users with such a special local directory could use "/:/C:/"
instead. Emacs supports this case already, and I've fixed some errors in
the run of this report. call-process with such a default-directory does
not work yet, but this is an error which could be fixed. It doesn't
qualify to change the Tramp design.

>         Stefan

Best regards, Michael.