Re: Bug#671798: parallel: Passing args from command line is borked

[Ole Tange]

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Ian Zimmerman <itz@buug.org> wrote:

> Rogério> GNU parallel, to be compatible, also exposes that behavior,
> Rogério> when invoked with the --tollef option. Otherwise, it is the
> Rogério> pure GNU parallel behaviour.
>
> Rogério> The default behavior in Debian was chosen to be --tollef as
> Rogério> moreutils's presence in Debian predated GNU parallel for some
> Rogério> time and to not interfere with users that happen to have both
> Rogério> moreutils and GNU parallel installed.
>
> I see.  I mistakenly thought this dual personality was a Debian
> invention.  As it is it's clearly an upstream bug, they should document
> it in the manpage or at least in the README.

It is assumed that you do not enable --tollef by accident, and you
only enable it to get compatibility with Tollef's parallel (i.e. you
know what you are doing). That is why there is a warning when you run:

  parallel --version
  (with --tollef enabled in /etc/parallel/config)

which you - according to documentation - must do before filing a bug report.

I am somewhat annoyed that --tollef gives me more support work.
--tollef was implemented to _avoid_ more support work by providing
backwards compatibility to existing Tollef's parallel users to ease
their migration to GNU Parallel. But if --tollef proves to give me
more support work it might be preferable to retire that option.

I would tend to agree with Ian: If I had explicitly asked to get GNU
Parallel installed I would not expect it to go into tollef mode (It
will be fair to call me biased here).


/Ole
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