=head1 WHERE DOES ENVY FIT IN?

We are looking into how to sink up two seprate job sits, with common
software, and other tools.  Envy struck us as a way to go, but we are
not sure of all the possable usages of the software.  Our objective is
to have a way to maintain two separate job sites, and not spend alot
of time checking paths, working tool directories, and so forth.  How
does envy fit in?

Envy is designed to centralize specification of environment variables.
It also helps manage dependencies between versions.  It sounds like
envy will fit your requirements.  Read on!

=head1 IS THERE ANY DOCUMENTATION ON THE FORMAT OF AN .ENV FILE?

See 'envy help'!

=head1 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO UNLOAD?

Sure, you could just start a fresh shell but this isn't very clean or
intuitive.  Also important, it is the requirement of being able to
unload that restricts the kind of operations that are supported.  This
principle guided the design of envy as much as anything else.

=head1 HOW CAN I DO CONDITIONAL REQUIRE?

I want to do something like this:

if($SITE == "FC"){
  require mgc.site1  
}elsif($SITE == "CS"){
  require mgc.site2
}

Maybe you didn't realize that variable interpolation is also done in
require?  For example

  require mgc.$SITE

=head1 DIMENSIONS?

Only one version of a particular dimension can be active on one time.
For example, if you have a set of envy files like this:

  skylark-1.1.env
  skylark-1.2.env
  boomhopper-3.1.env
  boomhopper-3.2.env

Set up 'skylark' as one dimension and 'boomhopper' as another.  Then
you can mix versions but you can't have two versions of 'boomhopper'
active at once.

=head1 ARE THERE ANY TOOLS SIMILAR TO ENVY?

Envy shares some ideas with www.modules.org.  That is the only similar
tool I know of.

=head1 HOW DO I TEST NEW .ENV FILES?

Put them in $HOME/.envy/.  This directory is always in envy's search
path.

=head1 WHAT IS WRAPPER?

Wrapper is for crontab.  It makes testing crontab entries very easy:

  env -i /path/to/bin/wrapper -m prod myenv -s 'script...'

=head1 WHAT IF USERS ARE RESISTING?

echo
echo *** Welcome to Big Company!
echo
echo 1. If you are a developer, you might like to be in 'dev' by default:
echo   echo dev > $HOME/.custom/startup
echo
echo 2. If you write crontab scripts, make sure they can run like this:
echo   env -i $ETOP/bin/wrapper -s 'script...'
echo
echo We realize this is a bit confusing.  If you have any questions,
echo please don't hesitate to voice your concerns or questions to
echo Sasha or Joshua.
echo
echo WE FEEL THAT THE ENVY SYSTEM MEETS THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE
echo SIMPLEST POSSIBLE MANNER.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE.
echo

=head1 WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN .ENV FILE AND A .MO FILE?

.mo is the old extension.  Otherwise they are identical.

=head1 THANKS

A big thanks to Tony.Parent@symbios.com and Jerry.Hoffman@symbios.com
for motivating this FAQ by asking many questions!
